.  . 

•-.••-. 


I 


I 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


TEAYEL3  II  AMERICA 


TWO    LECTURES    DELIVERED    TO    THE    LEEDS    MECHANICS 

INSTITUTION  AND  LITERARY    SOCIETY, 

DECEMBER  STH  AND  GTH,  1850. 

BY 
THE  RIGHT  HONORABLE 

THE  EARL  OF  CARLISLE, 

(LORD  MORPETH.) 


NEW-YOKE:  : 

G.   P.    PUTNAM,    155  BROADWAY. 
1851. 


BAKER,  GODWIN  &  Co.,  Printers, 
No.  1  Spruce  St.,  New- York. 


Its' 


TO  THE  MEMBERS  OP  THE 
YORKSHIRE  UNION  OF  MECHANICS'  INSTITUTES, 

BEFORE    A    BRANCH    OP    WHICH 

THESE  LECTURES  WERE  READ, 

THEY    ARE    NOW    RESPECTFULLY    DEDICATED, 
BY  THEIR  ASSOCIATE  AND  WELL-WISHER, 

CARLISLE. 
Christmas,  1850. 


1179568 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


IT  may  be  known  to  some  of  those  whom  I  have  the 
pleasure  to  see  around  me,  that  when  circumstances 
to  which  I  need  not  further  allude,  occasioned  a  breach, 
temporary  indeed,  and  soon  repaired,  in  my  connection 
with  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire, — when,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  some  of  your  neighbors,  and  probably 
of  yourselves,  had  given  me  leave  to  go  upon  my  tra- 
vels,— I  thought  I  could  make  no  better  use  of  this 
involuntary  leisure  than  by  acquiring  some  personal 
knowledge  of  the  United  States  of  America.  I  ac? 
cordingly  embarked  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1841, 
and  spent  about  one  whole  year  in  North  America, 
having  within  that  period  passed  nearly  over  the 


6  TKAVKLS    IN    AMERICA. 

length  and  breadth  of  the  Republic,  trod  at  least  the 
soil  of  twenty-two  out  of  the  twenty-six  States  of 
which  the  Union  was  then  composed,  and  paid  short 
visits  to  the  Queen's  dominions  in  Canada,  and  to  the 
Island  of  Cuba.  I  determined  to  keep  a  journal  dur- 
ing my  travels,  and  only  at  the  end  of  them  to  decide 
what  should  become  of  it  when  it  was  completed.  I 
found  it  was  written  in  too  hurried  and  desultory  a  man- 
ner, and  was  too  much  confined  to  my  own  daily  pro- 
ceedings, to  make  it  of  interest  to  the  public  at  large ; 
still  more  strongly  I  felt  that  after  having  been  re- 
ceived with  uniform  civility  and  attention,  nay,  I  may 
say,  with  real  warmth  and  openness  of  heart,  I  should 
not  wish,  even  where  I  had  nothing  but  what  was  most 
favorable  to  communicate,  immediately  to  exhibit  my- 
self as  an  inquisitive  observer  of  the  interior  life  to 
which  I  had  been  admitted ;  and  this  very  feeling 
would  probably  have  disqualified  me  for  the  office  of 
an  impartial  critic.  Now,  however,  that  above  eight 
years  have  elapsed  since  my  return,  in  turning  over 
the  pages  then  written,  it  has  seemed  to  me  allowable 
tp  endeavor,  for  a  purpose  like  the  present,  to  convey 


TRAVELS    IN     AMERICA.  7 

a  few  of  the  leading  impressions  which  I  derived  from 
the  surface  of  nature  and  society  as  they  exhibited 
themselves  in  the  New  World. 

It  must  follow  necessarily  from  such  limits  as  could 
be  allowed  to  me  on  an  occasion  of  this  kind,  that  any 
account  which  I  can  put  together  from  materials  so 
vast  and  so  crowded,  must  be  the  merest  superficial 
skimming  of  the  subject  that  can  be  conceived.  All  I 
can  answer  for  is,  that  it  shall  be  faithful  to  the  feel- 
ings excited  at  the  moment,  and  perfectly  honest  as  far 
as  it  goes.  I  must  premise  one  point  with  reference 
to  what  I  have  just  now  glanced  at, — the  use  of  indi- 
vidual names.  I  came  in  contact  with  several  of  the 
public  men,  the  historical  men  they  will  be,  of  the 
American  Republic.  I  shall  think  myself  at  liberty 
occasionally  to  depart  in  their  instance  from  the  rule 
of  strict  abstinence  which  I  have  otherwise  prescribed 
to  myself,  and  to  treat  them  as  public  propeily,  so  long 
as  I  say  nothing  to  their  disadvantage.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  public  men  of  the  United  States  are  not 
created  faultless  beings,  any  more  than  the  public  men 
of  other  countries ;  it  must  not,  therefore,  be  consid- 


8  TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA. 

ered  when  I  mention  with  pleasure  any  thing  which 
redounds  to  their  credit,  that  I  am  intending  to  present 
you  with  their  full  and  complete  portraits. 

It  was  on  the  21st  day  of  October,  upon  a  bright 
crisp  morning,  that  the  Columbia  steam-packet,  upon 
which  I  was  a  passenger,  turned  the  lighthouse  outside 
the  harbor  of  Boston.  The  whole  effect  of  the  scene 
was  cheerful  and  pleasing ;  the  bay  is  studded  with 
small  islands,  bare  of  trees,  but  generally  crowned 
with  some  sparkling  white  building,  frequently  some 
public  establishment.  The  town  rises  well  from  the 
water,  and  the  shipping  and  the  docks  wore  the  look 
of  prosperous  commerce.  As  I  stood  by  some  Ameri- 
can friends  acquired  during  the  voyage,  and  heard 
them  point  out  the  familiar  villages,  and  villas,  and  in- 
stitutions, with  patriotic  pleasure,  I  could  not  alto- 
gether repress  some  slight  but  not  grudging  envy  of 
those  who  were  to  bring  so  long  a  voyage  to  an  end 
in  their  own  country,  amidst  their  own  family,  within 
their  own  homes.  I  am  not  aware  I  ever  again  expe- 
rienced, during  my  whole  American  sojourn,  the  pecu- 
liar feeling  of  the  stranger.  It  was,  indeed,  dispelled 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  9 

at  the  moment,  when  their  flag  ship,  the  Columbus, 
gave  our  Columbia  a  distinguished,  and,  I  thought, 
touching  reception  ;  the  crew  manned  the  yards,  cheer- 
ed, and  then  the  band  played,  first  "  God  Save  the 
Queen,"  and  then  "  Yankee  Doodle."  I  spent  alto- 
gether, at  two  different  intervals,  about  a  month  in 
Boston. 

I  look  back  with  fond  recollection  to  its  well-built 
streets — the  swelling  dome  of  its  State-House — the 
pleasant  walks  on  what  is  termed  the  common — a  park, 
in  fact,  of  moderate  size,  in  the  centre  of  the  city, 
where  I  made  my  first  acquaintance  with  the  bright 
winter  sunsets  of  America,  and  the  peculiar  transpa- 
rent green  and  opal  tints  which  stripe  the  skies  around 
them — the  long  wooden  causeways  across  the  inner 
harbor,  which  rather  recalled  St.  Petersburgh  to  my 
recollection — the  newly-erected  granite  obelisk  on  a 
neighboring  height,  which  certainly  had  no  affinity 
with  St.  Petersburgh,  as  it  was  to  mark  the  spot,  sa- 
cred to  an  American,  of  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill — 
the  old  elm  tree,  at  the  suburban  university  of  Cam- 
bridge, beneath  which  Washington  drew  his  sword  in 
1* 


10  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

order  to  take  command  of  the  national  army — the 
shaded  walks  and  glades  of  Mount  Auburn,  the  beau- 
tiful cemetery  of  Boston,  to  which  none  that  we  yet 
have  can  be  compared,  but  which  I  trust  before  long 
our  Chadwicks  and  Paxtons  may  enable  us  to  imitate, 
and  perhaps  to  excel.  These  are  some  of  my  external 
recollections  of  Boston ;  but  there  are  some  fonder 
still,  of  the  most  refined  and  animated  social  inter- 
course— of  hospitalities  which  it  seemed  impossible  to 
exhaust — of  friendships  which  I  trust  can  never  be  ef- 
faced. Boston  appears  to  me,  certainly,  on  the  whole, 
the  American  town  in  which  an  Englishman  of  culti- 
vated and  literary  tastes,  or  of  philanthropic  pursuits, 
would  feel  himself  most  at  home.  The  residence  here 
was  rendered  peculiarly  agreeable  to  me  by  a  friend- 
ship with  one  of  its  inhabitants,  which  I  had  previ- 
ously made  in  England ;  he  hardly  yet  comes  within 
my  rule  of  exception,  but  I  do  not  give  up  the  notion 
of  his  becoming  one  of  the  historical  men  of  his  coun- 
try. However,  it  is  quite  open  for  me  to  mention  some 
of  those  with  whom,  mainly  through  his  introduction, 
I  here  became  acquainted.  There  was  Mr.  Justice 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  11 

• 

Story,  whose  reputation  and  authority  as  a  commenta- 
tor and  expounder  of  law,  stand  high  wherever  law  is 
known  or  honored,  and  who  was,  what  at  least  is  more 
generally  attractive,  one  of  the  most  generous  and  sin- 
gle-hearted of  men.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer 
of  this  country,  especially  of  its  lawyers;  how  he 
would  kindle  up  and  flow  on  if  he  touched  upon  Lord 
Hard  wick  or  Lord  Mansfield — "  Sir,"  as  an  American 
always  begins,  "  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois  this  day 
Lord  Mansfield  administers  the  law  of  commerce." 
He  had  also  a  very  exalted  opinion  of  the  Judgments 
of  Lord  Stowell,  which  his  own  studies  and  practice 
had  led  him  thoroughly  to  appreciate;  and  I  may 
permit  myself  to  say  that  he  had  formed  a  high  esti- 
mate of  the  judicial  powers  of  Lord  Cottenham.  I 
must  admit  one  thing,  when  he  was  in  the  room  few 
others  could  get  in  a  word  ;  but  it  was  impossible  to 
resent  this,  for  he  talked  evidently  not  to  bear  down 
others,  but  because  he  could  not  help  it.  Then  there 
was  Dr.  Channing.  I  could  not  hear  him  preach,  as 
his  physical  powers  were  nearly  exhausted ;  but  on 
one  or  two  occasions  I  was  admitted  to  his  house. 


12  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

You  found  a  fragile  frame,  and  a  dry  manner,  but  you 
soon  felt  that  you  were  in  a  presence  in  which  nothing 
that  was  impure,  base,  or  selfish  could  breathe  at  ease. 
There  was  the  painter,  Alston,  a  man  of  real  genius, 
who  suffices  to  prove  that  the  domain  of  the  fine  arts, 
though  certainly  not  hitherto  the  most  congenial  to 
the  American  soil,  may  be  successfully  brought,  to  use 
their  current  phrase,  into  annexation  with  it.  These, 
alas !  have  since  my  visit,  all  been  taken  away.  In 
the  more  immediate  department  of  letters  there  are 
happily  several  who  yet  remain — Mr.  Bancroft,  the 
able  and  accomplished  historian  of  his  own  country — 
Mr.  Ticknor,  who  has  displayed  the  resources  of  a  well- 
stored  and  accomplished  mind  in  his  recent  work  on 
the  literature  of  Spain — Mr.  Longfellow,  with  whose 
feeling  and  graceful  poetry  many  must  be  acquainted — 
Mr.  Emerson,  who  has  been  heard  and  admired  in  this 
country — and  I  crown  my  list  with  Mr.  Prescott,  the 
historian  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  of  Mexico  and  of 
Peru,  with  respect  to  whom,  during  the  visit  he  paid 
to  England  in  the  past  summer,  I  had  the  satisfaction 
of  witnessing  how  all  that  was  most  eminent  in  this 


TRAVELS   IN   AMEKICA.  13 

country  confirmed  the  high  estimate    I  had  myself 
formed  of  his  head,  and  the  higher  one  of  his  heart. 

The  public  institutions  of  Boston  are  admirably  con- 
ducted. The  Public  or  Common  Schools  there,  as  I 
believe  in  New-England  generally,  are  supported  by  a 
general  rate,  to  which  all  contribute,  and  all  may  pro- 
fit by.  I  am  not  naturally  now  disposed  to  discuss  the 
question,  how  far  this  system  would  bear  being  trans- 
planted and  ingrafted  on  our  polity ;  but  it  would  be 
uncandid  if  I  did  not  state  that  the  universality  of  the 
instruction,  and  the  excellence  of  what  fell  under  my 
own  observation,  presented  to  my  mind  some  mortify- 
ing points  of  contrast  with  what  we  have  hitherto  ef- 
fected at  home.  It  is  well  known  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  more  wealthy  and  cultivated  part  of  the 
society  of  Boston  belong  to  the  Unitarian  persuasion  ; 
but  a  considerable  number  of  the  middle  classes,  and 
especially  of  the  rural  population  of  New-England, 
comprising  the  six  Northern  States  of  the  Union,  still 
retain  much  of  the  Puritan  tenets  and  habits  of  their 
immediate  ancestors, — their  Pilgrim  Fathers.  Before 
I  leave  Boston,  let  me  add  one  observation  on  a  lighter 


14  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

topic.  I  lodged  at  the  Tremont  Hotel,  which  was  ad- 
mirably conducted,  like  very  many  of  those  imposing 
establishments  in  the  chief  cities  of  the  Union.  Here 
I  learnt  that  one  is  apt  to  receive  false  impi-essions  at 
first ;  I  was  struck  with  the  clean,  orderly,  agile  ap- 
pearance of  the  waiters.  "  The  Americans  beat  us 
hollow  in  waiters,"  was  my  inner  thought ;  on  inquir- 
ing I  found  that  of  the  twenty-five  waiters  in  the  house, 
four  were  English  and  twenty-one  Irish.  I  could  not 
help  wishing  that  a  large  number  of  the  Irish  might 
come  and  be  waiters  for  a  little  while. 

Within  three  or  four  days  of  my  landing  I  grew  im- 
patient to  see  the  Falls  of  Niagara  without  loss  of 
time  ;  if  any  sudden  event  should  have  summoned  me 
home,  I  felt  how  much  I  should  have  grudged  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  without  having  been  at  Niagara,  and 
I  also  wished  to  look  upon  the  autumn  tints  of  the 
American  Forest,  before  the  leaves,  already  beginning 
to  fall,  had  entirely  disappeared.  The  Western  Rail- 
way, which  appeared  to  me  the  best  constructed  that 
I  saw  in  America,  took  me  to  Albany,  a  distance  of 
200  miles.  The  railway  carriages,  always  there  called 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  15 

cars,  consist  of  long  rooms,  rather  like  a  dining-room 
of  a  steam-packet,  with  a  stove  inside,  often  a  most 
desirable  addition  in  the  American  winter,  and  you  can 
change  your  seat  or  walk  about  as  you  choose.  They 
are  generally  rougher  than  our  railways,  and  the  whole 
getting  up  of  the  line  is  of  a  ruder  and  cheaper  cha- 
racter ;  they  do  not  impede  the  view  as  much  as  with 
us,  as  they  make  no  scruple  of  dashing  across  or  along- 
side of  the  main  street  in  the  towns  or  villages  through 
which  they  pass.  But  I  ought  to  remark  about  this 
as  about  every  thing  else,  that  the  work  of  progress 
and  transformation  goes  on  with  such  enormous  rapidi- 
ty, that  the  interval  of  eight  years  since  my  visit  will 
probably  have  made  a  large  portion  of  my  remarks 
thoroughly  obsolete.  The  New-England  country 
through  which  we  passed  looks  cheerful,  interspersed 
with  frequent  villages  and  numerous  churches — bear- 
ing the  mark  at  the  same  time  of  the  long  winter  and 
barren  soil  with  which  the  stout  Puritan  blood  of  Brit- 
ain has  so  successfully  contended  ;  indeed,  the  only 
staple  productions  of  a  district  which  supplies  seamen 
for  all  the  Union,  and  ships  over  all  the  world,  are 


16  TRAVELS    IX    AMERICA. 

said  to  be  ice  and  granite.  Albany  is  the  capital  of 
the  state  of  I^ew-York, — the  Empire  State,  as  its  in- 
habitants love  to  call  it,  and  it  is  a  name  which  it  de- 
serves, as  fairly  as  our  own  old  Yorkshire  would  deserve 
to  be  called  the  Empire  Comity  of  England.  It  is  ra- 
ther an  imposing  town,  rising  straight  above  the  Hud- 
son river,  gay  with  some  gilded  domes,  and  many 
white  marble  columns,  only  they  are  too  frequently  ap- 
pended to  houses  of  very  staring  red  brick.  From 
Albany  to  Utica  the  railroad  follows  the  stream  of  the 
Mohawk,  which  recalls  the  name  of  the  early  Indian 
dwellers  in  that  bright  valley,  still  retaining  its  swell- 
ing outline  of  wood-covered  hills,  but  gay  with  pros- 
perous villages  and  busy  cultivation.  I  was  perhaps 
still  more  struck  the  next  evening,  though  it  was  a 
more  level  country,  where  the  railway  passes  in  the 
midst  of  the  uncleared  or  clearing  forest,  and  suddenly 
bursts  out  of  a  pine  glade  or  cedar  swamp  into  the 
heart  of  some  town,  probably  four,  three,  or  two  years 
old,  with  tall  white  houses,  well  lighted  shops,  billiard- 
rooms,  &c. ;  and  emerging,  as  we  did,  from  the  dark 
shadows  into  the  full  moonlight,  the  wooden  spires, 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  17 

domes,  and  porticoes  of  the  infant  cities  looked  every 
bit  as  if  they  had  been  hewn  out  of  the  marble  quar- 
ries of  Carrara.  I  am  aware  that  it  is  not  the  received 
opinion,  but  there  is  something  both  in  the  outward 
aspect  of  this  region  and  the  general  state  of  society 
accompanying  it,  which  to  me  seemed  eminently  poeti- 
cal. What  can  be  more  striking  or  stirring,  despite 
the  occasional  rudeness  of  the  forms,  than  all  this  en- 
terprise, energy,  and  life  welling  up  in  the  desert? 
At  the  towns  of  Syracuse,  of  Auburn,  and  of  Roches- 
ter, I  experienced  the  sort  of  feeling  which  takes  away 
one's  breath ;  the  process  seemed  actually  going  on 
before  one's  eyes,  and  one  hardly  knows  whether  to 
think  it  as  grand  as  the  Iliad,  or  as  quaint  as  a  harle- 
quin farce.  I  will  quote  the  words  I  wrote  down  at 
the  time : — 

"  The  moment  is  not  come  for  me  yet,  if  it  ever 
should  come,  to  make  me  feel  myself  warranted  in 
forming  speculations  upon  far  results,  upon  guarantees 
for  future  endurance  and  stability  :  all  that  I  can  now 
do  is  to  look  and  to  marvel  at  what  is  before  my  eyes. 
I  do  not  think  I  am  deficient  in  relish  for  antiquity  and 


18  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

association ;  I  know  that  I  am  English,  not  in  a  pig- 
headed adhesion  to  every  thing  there,  but  in  heart  to 
its  last  throb.  Yet  I  cannot  be  unmoved  or  callous  to 
the  soarings  of  Young  America,  in  such  legitimate  and 
laudable  directions  too  ;  and  I  feel  that  it  is  already  not 
the  least  bright,  and  may  be  the  most  enduring  title  of 
my  country  to  the  homage  of  mankind,  that  she  has 
produced  such  a  people.  May  God  employ  them  both 
for  his  own  high  glory  !" 

I  am  bound  here  in  candor  to  state  that  I  think 
what  I  first  saw  in  America  was,  with  little  exception, 
the  best  of  its  kind ;  such  was  the  society  of  Boston — 
such  was  the  energy  of  progress  in  the  western  portion 
of  the  State  of  New- York. 

At  Rochester,  an  odd  coincidence  occurred  to  me, 
striking  enough  I  think  to  be  mentioned,  though  it  only 
concerned  myself.  After  the  arrival  of  the  railway 
carriage,  and  the  usual  copious  meal  of  tea  and  meat 
that  ensues,  I  had  been  walking  about  the  town,  which 
dates  only  from  1812,  and  then  contained  20,000  in- 
habitants, and  as  I  was  returning  to  the  hotel,  I  saw 
the  word  Theatre  written  up.  Wishing  to  see  every 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  19 

thing  in  a  new  country,  I  climbed  up  some  steep  stairs 
into  what  was  little  better  than  a  garret,  where  I  found 
a  rude  theatre,  and  ruder  audience,  consisting  chiefly 
of  boys,  who  took  delight  in  pelting  one  another. 
There  was  something,  however,  at  which  I  had  a  right 
to  feel  surprised.  In  a  playhouse  of  strollers,  at  a  town 
nearly  five  hundred  miles  in  the  interior  of  America, 
which,  thirty  years  before,  had  no  existence,  thus 
coming  in  by  the  merest  chance,  I  saw  upon  the  drop- 
scene  the  most  accurate  representation  of  my  own 
house,  Naworth  Castle,  in  Cumberland. 

A  great  improvement  has  recently  occurred  in  the 
nomenclature  of  this  district ;  formerly  a  too  classical 
surveyor  of  the  State  of  New- York  had  christened — I 
used  the  wrong  term,  had  heathenized,  to  make  a  new 
one, — all  the  young  towns  and  villages  by  the  singu- 
larly inapplicable  titles  of  Utica,  Ithaca,  Palmyra, 
Rome ;  they  are  now  reverting  to  the  far  more  appro- 
priate, and,  I  should  say,  more  harmonious  Indian 
names,  indigenous  to  the  soil,  such  as  Oneida,  Onon- 
daga,  Cayuga. 

I  thought  my  arrival  at  Niagara  very  interesting. 


20  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

We  had  come  to  Lockport,  where  there  is  a  chain  of 
magnificent  locks,  on  the  Erie  Canal,  one  of  the  great 
public  works  of  America,  and  which  has  done  much  to 
enrich  this  Empire  State  of  New- York.  The  surplus 
of  the  receipts  enabled  them  to  execute  a  variety  of 
other  public  works.  We  arrived  too  late  for  the  usual 
public  conveyance.  The  proprietor  of  the  stage  coach 
agreed  to  give  me,  with  one  or  two  other  Englishmen, 
a  lumber  wagon  to  convey  us  to  the  Falls.  The  Colonel, 
for  he  was  one,  as  I  found  the  drivers  of  the  coaches 
often  were,  drove  his  team  of  four  horses  himself.  I 
generally  found  the  stage-coach  driving  in  the  United 
States  indescribably  rough,  but  the  drivers  very  adroit 
in  their  steerage,  and  always  calling  their  horses  by 
their  names,  and  addressing  them  as  reasonable  beings, 
to  which  they  seemed  quite  to  respond.  Altogether, 
the  strangeness  of  the  vehicle,  the  cloudless  beauty  of 
the  night,  the  moonlight  streaming  through  the  forest 
glades,  the  meeting  a  party  of  the  Tuscarora  Indians, 
who  still  have  a  settlement  here,  the  first  hearing  the 
noise  of  Niagara  about  seven  miles  off,  and  the  growing 
excitement  of  the  nearer  approach,  gave  to  the  whole 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  21 

drive  a  most  stirring  and  enjoyable  character.  When 
I  arrived  at  the  hotel",  the  Cataract  House,  I  would  not 
anticipate  by  any  moonlight  glimpses  the  full  disclo- 
sures of  the  coming  day,  but  reserved  my  first  visit  for 
the  clear  light  and  freshened  feelings  of  the  morning. 
I  staid  five  days  at  Niagara  on  that  occasion ;  I  visited 
it  again  twice,  having  travelled  several  thousands  of 
miles  in  each  interval.  I  have  thus  looked  upon  it  in 
the  late  autumn,  in  the  early  spring,  and  in  the  full 
summer.  Mrs.  Butler,  in  her  charming  work  on 
America,  when  she  comes  to  Niagara  says  only,  "  Who 
can  describe  that  sight  ?"  and,  with  these  words,  fin- 
ishes her  book.  There  is  not  merely  the  difficulty  of 
finding  adequate  words,  but  there  is  a  simplicity  and 
absence,  as  I  should  say,  of  incidents  in  the  scenery, 
or,  at  least,  so  entire  subordination  of  them  to  the  main 
great  spectacle,  that  attempts  at  description  would 
seem  inapplicable  as  well  as  impotent.  Nevertheless  I 
have  undertaken,  however  inadequately,  the  attempt  to 
place  before  you  the  impressions  which  I  actually  de- 
rived from  the  most  prominent  objects  that  I  saw  in 
America.  How,  then,  can  I  wholly  omit  Niagara? 


22  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

The  first  view  neither  in  the  least  disappointed,  or  sur- 
prised, but  it  wholly  satisfied  me.  I  felt  it  to  be  com- 
plete, and  that  nothing  could  go  beyond  it ;  volume, 
majesty,  might,  are  the  first  ideas  which  it  conveys ;  on 
nearer  and  more  familiar  inspection  I  appreciated  other 
attributes  and  beauties — the  emerald  crest — the  seas  of 
spray — the  rainbow  wreaths.  Pictures  and  panoramas 
had  given  me  a  correct  apprehension  of  the  form  and 
outline ;  but  they  fail,  for  the  same  reason  as  language 
would,  to  impart  an  idea  of  the  whole  effect,  which  is 
not  picturesque,  though  it  is  sublime ;  there  is  also  the 
technical  drawback  in  painting  of  the  continuous  mass 
of  white,  and  the  line  of  the  summit  of  the  Fall  is  as 
smooth  and  even  as  a  common  mill-dam.  Do  not 
imagine,  however,  that  the  effect  could  be  improved 
by  being  more  picturesque ;  just  as  there  are  several 
trivial  and  unsightly  buildings  on  the  banks,  but  Niagara 
can  be  no  more  spoiled  than  it  can  be  improved.  You 
would,  when  on  the  spot,  no  more  think  of  complaining 
that  Niagara  was  not  picturesque,  than  you  would  re- 
mark, in  the  shock  and  clang  of  battle,  that  a  trumpet 
sounded  out  of  tune.  Living  at  Niagara  was  not  like 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  23 

ordinary  life ;  its  not  over  loud,  but  constant  solemn 
roar,  has  in  itself  a  mysterious  sound :  is  not  the  highest 
voice  to  which  the  Universe  can  ever  listen,  compared 
by  inspiration  to  the  sound  of  many  waters?  The 
whole  of  existence  there  has  a  dreamy  but  not  a  frivo- 
lous impress ;  you  feel  that  you  are  not  in  the  common 
world,  but  in  its  sublimest  temple. 

I  naturally  left  such  a  place  and  such  a  life  with 
keen  regret,  but  I  was  already  the  last  visitor  of  the 
year,  and  the  hotels  were  about  to  close.  I  was  told 
that  I  had  already  been  too  late  for  the  best  tints  of 
autumn  (or  fall,  as  the  Americans  picturesquely  term 
that  season),  and  that  they  were  at  no  time  so  vivid 
that  year  as  was  usual ;  I  saw,  however,  great  richness 
and  variety  of  hue ;  I  think  the  bright  soft  yellow  of 
the  sugar  maple,  and  the  dun  red  of  the  black  oak, 
were  the  most  remarkable.  These  and  the  beech,  the 
white  cedar,  the  hemlock  spruce,  the  hickory,  with  oc- 
casionally the  chestnut  and  walnut,  seemed  the  pre- 
vailing trees  in  all  this  district.  I  can  well  imagine  a 
person  being  disappointed  in  the  American  Forest; 
trees,  such  as  those  at  Wentworth  and  Castle  Howard 


24 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 


(may  I  say  ?)  seem  the  exception,  and  not  the  rule. 
The  mass  of  them  run  entirely  to  height,  and  are  too 
thick  together,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  too  much  dead 
fir ;  still  there  is  a  great  charm  and  freshness  in  the 
American  forest,  derived  partly  perhaps  from  associa- 
tion, when  you  look  through  the  thick  tracery  of  its 
virgin  glades. 

On  my  going  back  I  paid  two  visits  at  country 
houses ;  one  to  an  old  gentleman,  Mr.  Wadsworth, 
most  distinguished  in  appearance,  manner,  and  under- 
standing, who  had  settled  where  I  found  him  fifty  years 
before,  when  he  had  not  a  white  neighbor  within  thirty 
miles,  or  a  flour  mill  within  fifty  ;  he  lived  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  Indians,  who  have  now  disappeared.  On 
some  occasion,  there  had  been  a  review  of  a  corps  of 
militia.  A  neighboring  Indian  Chief  had  been  present, 
and  was  observed  to  be  very  dejected ;  Mr.  Wadsworth 
went  up  to  him,  and  offered  refreshment,  which  was 
usually  very  acceptable,  but  he  declined  it.  Upon  be- 
ing pressed  to  say  what  was  the  matter,  he  answered 
with  a  deep  sigh,  pointing  to  the  east,  "  You  are  the 
rising  sun" — then  to  the  west,  "We  are  the  setting." 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  25 

The  face  of  the  country  is  now,  indeed,  changed ;  a 
small  flourishing  town,  the  capital  of  the  county, 
stretches  from  the  gate ;  and  the  house  overlooks  one 
of  the  richest  and  best  cultivated  tracts  in  America,  the 
valley  of  the  Genesee.  I  fancy  that  quotations  of 
the  price  of  Genesee  wheat  are  familiar  to  the  fre- 
quenters of  our  corn  markets.  My  host  was  one  of 
the  comparatively  few  persons  in  the  United  States 
who  have  tenants  under  them  holding  farms ;  among 
them  I  found  three  Yorkshiremen  from  my  own 
neighborhood,  one  of  whom  showed  me  what  he  called 
the  gainest  way  to  the  house,  which  I  recognized  as  a 
genuine  Yorkshire  term ;  he  told  me  that  his  landlord 
was  the  first  nobleman  in  the  country,  which  is  clearly 
not  an  Americanism.  While  on  this  topic  I  may  men- 
tion that,  on  another  occasion,  I  was  taken  to  drink  tea 
at  a  farmer's  house  in  New  England.  We  had  been 
regaled  most  hospitably,  when  the  farmer  took  the 
friend  who  had  brought  me  aside,  and  asked  what  part 
of  England  Lord  Morpeth  came  from  ?  "  From  York- 
shire, I  believe,"  said  my  friend.  "Well,  I  should  not 
2 


6  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

have  thought  that  from  his  manner  of  talking,"  was 
the  reply. 

My  other  visit  was  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  who  had  been 
the  last  President  of  the  United  States,  and  who,  I 
suspect,  shrewdly  reckoned  on  being  the  next.  It 
seemed,  indeed,  at  that  time  to  be  the  general  expecta- 
tion among  his  own,  the  Democratic,  or  as  they  were 
then  commonly  called,  the  Loco-foco  party.  He  was 
at  that  time  living  on  his  farm  of  Kinderhook ;  the 
house  was  modest  and  extremely  well  ordered,  and 
nothing  could  exceed  the  courtesy  or  fulness  of  his 
conversation.  He  abounded  in  anecdotes  of  all  the 
public  men  of  his  country.  In  his  dining  room  were 
pictures  of  Jefferson  and  General  Jackson,  the  great 
objects  of  his  political  devotion.  On  my  return  through 
Albany,  I  had  an  interview  with  Mr.  Seward,  then  for 
the  second  time  Governor  of  the  State  of  New- York. 
I  find  that  I  noted  at  the  time,  that  he  was  the  first 
person  I  had  met  who  did  not  speak  slightingly  of  the 
Abolitionists ;  he  thought  they  were  gradually  gaining 
ground.  He  had  already  acted  a  spirited  part  on 
points  connected  with  slavery,  especially  in  a  contest 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  27 

with  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  concerning  the  delivery 
of  fugitive  slaves. 

I  approached  the  city  of  New- York  by  the  Hudson. 
The  whole  course  of  that  river  from  Albany,  as  seen 
from  the  decks  of  the  countless  steamers  that  ply  along 
it,  is  singularly  beautiful,  especially  where  it  forces  a 
passage  through  the  barriers  of  the  Highlands,  which, 
however,  afford  no  features  of  rugged  grandeur  like  our 
friends  in  Scotland ;  but  though  the  forms  are  steep 
and  well-defined,  their  rich  green  outlines  of  waving 
wood,  inclosing  in  smooth  many-curved  reaches  the 
sail-covered  bosom  of  the  stately  river,  present  nothing 
but  soft  and  smiling  images.  I  then  took  up  my  win- 
ter quarters  at  New- York.  I  thought  this,  the  com- 
mercial and  fashionable,  though  not  the  political  capital 
of  the  Union,  a  very  brilliant  city.  To  give  the  best 
idea  of  it,  I  should  describe  it  as  something  of  a  fusion 
between  Liverpool  and  Paris — crowded  quays,  long 
perspectives  of  vessels  and  masts,  bustling  streets,  gay 
shops,  tall  white  houses,  and  a  clear  brilliant  sky  over- 
head. There  is  an  absence  of  solidity  in  the  general 
appearance,  but  in  some  of  the  new  buildings  they  are 


28  .   TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

successfully  availing  themselves  of  their  ample  re- 
sources in  white  marble  and  granite.  At  the  point  of 
the  Battery,  where  the  long  thoroughfare  of  Broadway, 
extending  some  miles,  pushes  its  green  fringe  into  the 
wide  harbor  of  New-York,  with  its  glancing  waters 
and  graceful  shipping,  and  the  limber,  long,  raking 
masts,  which  look  so  different  from  onr  own,  and  the 
soft  swelling  outline  of  the  receding  shores ;  it  has  a 
special  character  and  beauty  of  its  own.  I  spent  about 
a  month  here  very  pleasantly ;  the  society  appeared  to 
me  on  the  whole  to  have  a  less  solid  and  really  refined 
character  than  that  of  Boston,  but  there  is  more  of  an- 
imation, gayety,  and  sparkle  in  the  daily  life.  In  point 
of  hospitality,  neither  could  outdo  the  other.  Keeping 
to  my  rule  of  only  mentioning  names  which  already 
belong  to  fame,  I  may  thus  distinguish  the  late  Chan- 
cellor Kent,  whose  commentaries  are  well-known  to 
professional  readers.  He  had  been  obliged,  by  what  I 
think  the  very  unwise  law  of  the  State  of  New- York, 
to  retire  from  his  high  legal  office  at  the  premature  age 
of  sixty,  and  there  I  found  him  at  seventy-eight,  full  of 
animation  and  racy  vigor,  which,  combined  with  great 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  29 

simplicity,  made  his  conversation  most  agreeable. 
Washington  Irving,  a- well-known  name  both  to  Amer- 
ican and  English  ears,  whose  nature  appears  as  gentle 
and  genial  as  his  works — I  cannot  well  give  higher 
praise:  Mr.  Bryant,  in  high  repute  as  a  poet,  and 
others.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  making  acquaintance 
with  many  of  the  families  of  those  who  had  been  the 
foremost  men  in  their  country,  Hamiltons,  Jays,  Liv- 
ingstons. I  lodged  at  the  Astor  House,  a  large  hotel 
conducted  upon  a  splendid  scale ;  and  I  cannot  refrain 
from  one,  I  fear  rather  sensual,  allusion  to  the  oyster 
cellars  of  New-York.  In  no  part  of  the  world  have  I 
ever  seen  places  of  refreshment  as  attractive — every 
one  seems  to  eat  oysters  all  day  long.  What  signifies 
more,  the  public  institutions  and  schools  are  there  also 
extremely  well  conducted.  The  churches  of  the  dif- 
ferent denominations  are  very  numerous  and  well  filled. 
It  is  my  wish  to  touch  very  lightly  upon  any  point 
which  among  us,  among  even  some  of  us  now  here, 
may  be  matter  of  controversy ;  I,  however,  honestly 
think  that  the  experience  of  the  United  States  tloes  not 
as  yet  enable  them  to  decide  on  either  side  the  argu- 


30  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

ment  between  the  Established  and  Voluntary  systems 
in  religion ;  take  the  towns  by  themselves,  and  I  think 
the  voluntary  principle  appears  fully  adequate  to  satisfy 
all  religious  exigencies ;  then  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  class  which  makes  the  main  difficulty  else- 
where, scarcely  if  at  all  exists  in  America ;  it  is  the 
blessed  privilege  of  the  United  States,  and  it  is  one 
which  goes  very  far  to  counterbalance  any  drawbacks 
at  which  I  may  have  to  hint,  that  they  really  have  not, 
as  a  class,  any  poor  among  them.  A  real  beggar  is 
what  you  never  see.  On  the  other  hand,  over  their 
immense  tracts  of  territory,  the  voluntary  system  has 
not  sufficed  to  produce  sufficient  religious  accommoda- 
tion ;  it  may,  however,  be  truly  questioned,  whether 
any  establishment  would  be  equal  to  that  function. 
This  is,  however,  one  among  the  many  questions  which 
the  republican  experience  of  America  has  not  yet  solved. 
As  matters  stand  at  present,  indifference  to  religion 
cannot  be  fairly  laid  to  her  charge ;  probably  religious 
extremes  are  pushed  farther  than  elsewhere ;  there 
certainly  is  a  breadth  and  universality  of  religious  lib- 
erty which  I  do  not  regard  without  some  degree  of  envy. 


TRAVELS   IN   AMERICA.  31 

Upon  my  progress  southward,  I  made  a  compara- 
tively short  halt  at  Philadelphia.     This  fair  city  has 
not  the  animation  of  New- York,  but  it  is  eminently  well 
built,  neat  and  clean  beyond  parallel.     The  streets  are 
all  at  right  angles  with  each  other,  and  bear  the  names 
of  the  different  trees  of  the  country ;  the  houses  are  of 
red  brick,  and  mostly  have  white  marble  steps  and 
silver  knockers,  all  looking  bright  and  shining  under  the 
effect  of  copious  and  perpetual  washing.     It  still  looks 
like  a  town  constructed  by  Quakers,  who  were  its  orig- 
inal founders ;  but  by  Quakers  who  had  become  rather 
dandified.     The  waterworks  established  here  are  de- 
servedly celebrated ;  each  house  can  have  as  much 
water  as  it  likes,  within  and  without,  at  every  moment, 
for  about  18s.  a  year.     I  hope  our  towns  will  be  emu- 
lous of  this  great  advantage.     I  think  it  right  to  say, 
that  in  our  general  arrangements  for  health  and  clean- 
liness we  appear  to  me  very  much  to  excel  the  Ameri- 
cans,- and  our  people  look  infinitely  healthier,  stouter, 
rosier,  jollier;    the  greater  proportion  of  Americans 
with  whom  you  converse  would  be  apt  to  tell  you  they 
were   dyspeptic,   whether   principally   from   the  dry 


32  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

quality  of  their  atmosphere,  the  comparatively  little 
exercise  which  they  take,  or  the  rapidity  with  which 
they  accomplish  their  meals,  I  will  not  take  upon  my- 
self to  pronounce.  There  is  one  point  of  advantage 
which  they  turn  to  account,  especially  in  all  their  new 
towns,  which  is,  that  their  immense  command  of  space 
enables  them  to  isolate  almost  every  house,  and  thus 
secure  an  ambient  atmosphere  for  ventilation.  In  my 
first  walk  through  Philadelphia  I  passed  the  glittering 
white  marble  portico  of  a  great  banking  establishment, 
which,  after  the  recent  crash  it  had  sustained,  made 
me  think  of  whited  sepulchres.  Near  it  was  a  pile, 
with  a  respectable  old  English  appearance,  of  far  nobler 
association;  this  was  the  State  House,  where  the 
Declaration  of  American  Independence  was  signed — 
one  of  the  most  pregnant  acts  of  which  history  bears 
record.  It  contains  a  picture  of  William  Penn  and  a 
statue  of  Washington.  While  I  was  there,  a  sailor, 
from  the  State  of  Maine,  with  a  very  frank  and  jaunty 
air,  burst  into  the  room,  and  in  a  glow  of  ardent  pat- 
riotism inquired,  "  Is  this  the  room  in  which  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  was  signed  ?"  When  he  found 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  33 

that  I  was  an  Englishman,  he  seemed,  with  real  good 
breeding,  to  be  afraid  that  he  had  grated  on  my  feel- 
ings, and  told  me  that  in  the  year  1814  our  flag  had 
waved  over  the  two  greatest  capitals  of  the  world, 
Washington  and  Paris.  I  looked  with  much  interest 
at  the  great  Model  Prison  of  the  separate  system.  I 
was  favorably  impressed  with  all  that  met  the  eye,  but 
I  refrain  from  entering  upon  the  vexed  question  of 
comparison  between  this  and  the  silent  and  other  sys- 
tems, as  I  feel  how  much  the  solution  must  depend 
upon  ever  recurring  experience.  The  poor-house,  like 
that  at  New- York,  is  built  and  administered  on  a  very 
costly  scale,  and  also  has  a  great  proportion  of  foreign- 
ers as  inmates,  and  of  the  foreigners  a  great  proportion 
Irish.  This  seems  to  enhance  the  munificence  of  the 
provision  for  destitution ;  at  the  same  time  it  is  not  to 
be  forgotten  that  the  foreign  labor  is  an  article  of  nearly 
essential  necessity  to  the  progress  of  the  country.  On 
the  only  Sunday  which  I  spent  in  Philadelphia,  I  went 
to  a  church  which  was  not  wanting  in  associations ;  the 
communion  plate  had  been  given  by  Queen  Anne,  and 
I  sat  in  the  pew  of  General  Washington.  I  was  told 
2* 


34  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

by  some  one  that  his  distinguished  contemporary,  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  said  of  him,  that  in  contradiction  to 
•what  was  often  thought,  he  was  a  man  of  decided 
genius,  but  he  was  such  a  personification  of  wisdom, 
that  he  never  put  any  thing  forward  which  the  occasion 
did  not  absolutely  require.  It  seemed  to  me  that  there 
was  at  Philadelphia  a  greater  separation  and  exclusive- 
ness  in  society,  more  resemblance  to  what  would  be 
called  a  fashionable  class  in  European  cities,  than  I  had 
found  in  America  elsewhere. 

My  next  brief  pause  was  at  Baltimore.  At  a  halt 
on  the  railroad  on  the  way  thither,  I  heard  a  conductor 
or  guard  say  to  a  negro,  "  I  cannot  let  you  go,  for  you 
are  a  SLAVE."  This  was  my  first  intimation  that  I  had 
crossed  the  border  which  divides  Freedom  from  Slavery. 
I  quote  from  the  entry  which  I  made  upon  noting  these 
words  that  evening : — "  Declaration  of  Independence 
which  I  read  yesterday — pillar  of  Washington  which 
I  have  looked  on  to-day — what  are  ye  ?" 

I  must  now  give  myself  some  little  vent.  It  was  a 
subject  which  I  felt  during  my  whole  sojourn  in 
America,  as  I  feel  it  still,  to  be  paramount  in  interest 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  35 

to  every  other.  It  was  one  on  which  I  intended  and 
endeavored  to  observe  a  sound  discretion ;  we  have 
not  ourselves  long  enough  washed  off  the  stain  to  give 
us  the  right  to  rail  at  those  whom  we  had  originally 
inoculated  with  the  pest ;  and  a  stranger  abundantly 
experiencing  hospitality  could  not  with  any  propriety 
interfere  wantonly  upon  the  most  delicate  and  difficult 
point  of  another  nation's  policy.  I  could  not,  however, 
fail  often  and  deeply  to  feel,  in  the  progress  of  my  u> 
tercourse  with  many  hi  that  country — "  Come  not,  my 
soul,  into  their  secret ;  to  their  counsel,  my  honor,  be 
not  thou  united."  At  the  same  tune  I  wished  never 
to  make  any  compromise  of  my  opinion.  I  made  it  a 
point  to  pay  special  respect  to  the  leading  Abolitionists 
— those  who  had  labored  or  suffered  in  the  cause — 
when  I  came  within  reach  of  them  ;  at  Boston,  I  com- 
mitted the  more  overt  act  of  attending  the  annual  anti- 
slavery  fair,  which  then  was  almost  considered  some- 
thing of  a  measure.  I  was  much  struck  in  the  distin- 
guished and  agreeable  companies  which  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  frequent,  with  a  few  honorable  exceptions, 
at  the  tone  of  disparagement,  contempt,  and  anger 


36  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

with  which  the  Abolitionists  were  mentioned  ;  just  as 
any  patrician  company,  in  this  country,  would  talk  of 
a  Socialist  or  a  Red  Republican.     I  am,  of  course, 
now  speaking  of  the   free   Northern   States ;  in  the 
South  an  Abolitionist  could  not  be  known  to  exist. 
My  impression  is,  that  in  the  subsequent  interval  the 
dislike,  the  anger,  has  remained,  and  may,  probably, 
have  been  heightened,  but  that  the  feeling  of  slight,  of 
ignoring  (to  use  a  current  phrase)  their  very  existence, 
must  have  been  sensibly  checked.      There  were  some 
who  told  me  that  they  made  it  the  business  of  their 
lives  to  superintend  the  passage  of  the  runaway  slaves 
through  the  free  States  ;  they  reckoned,  at  that  time, 
that  about  one  thousand  yearly  escaped  into  Canada. 
I  doubt  whether  the  enactment  and  operation  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill  will  damp  the  ardor  of  their  exer- 
tions.    It  may  be  easy  to  speak  discreetly  and  plausi- 
bly about  the  paramount  duty  of  not  contravening  the 
law  ;  but  how  would  you  feel,  my  countrymen,  if  a 
fugitive  was  at  your  feet  and  the  man-hunter  at  the 
door  ?     I  admit  that  the  majesty  of  the  law  is  on  one 
side ;  but  the  long  deep  misery  of  a  whole  human  life 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  37 

is  on  the  other.  What  you  ought  to  feel  is  fervent 
gratitude  to  the  Power  which  has  averted  from  your 
shores  and  hearths  this  fearful  trial,  and,  let  me  add,  a 
heartfelt  sympathy  with  those  who  are  sustaining  it. 

At  Baltimore  I  thought  there  was  a  more  pictu- 
resque disposition  of  ground  than  in  any  other  city  of  ^he 
Union :  it  is  built  on  swelling  eminences,  commanding 
views  of  the  widening  Chesapeake,  a  noble  arm  of  the 
sea.     There  are  an  unusual  number  of  public  monu- 
ments for  an  American  town,  and  hence  it  has  been 
christened  the  Monumental  City.     I  found  the  same 
hospitality  which  had  greeted  me  every  where,  and  the 
good  living  seemed  to  me  carried  to  its  greatest  height ; 
they  have  in  perfection  the  terrapin,  a  kind  of  land 
tortoise,  and  the  canvas-back  duck,  a  most  unrivalled 
bird  in  any  country.     With  reference  to  the  topic  I 
have  lately  touched  upon,  a  slaveholders'  convention 
was  being  held  at  the  time  of  my  visit  for  the  State  of 
Maryland.     They  had  been  led  to  adopt  this  step  by 
their  apprehensions  both  of  the  increase  of  the  free 
colored  population,  and  what  they  termed  their  demor- 
alizing action  on  the  slaves.    The  language,  as  reported, 


• 
• 


38  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

did  not  seem  to  have  been  very  violent,  but  they  very 
nearly  subjected  to  lynch-law  a  man  whom  they  sus- 
pected to  be  a  reporter  for  an  abolitionist  newspaper. 
I  trust  we  are  not  going  to  copy  that  system  in  this 
country.  I  dined  with  the  daughter  of  Charles  Car- 
roll, who,  when  signing  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, was  told  by  a  bystander  that  he  would  incur  no 
danger,  as  there  were  so  many  of  the  same  name — 
"  of  Carrollton,"  he  added  to  his  name,  and  I  think  it 
is  the  only  one  upon  the  document  which  has  any  ap- 
pendage. Being  thus  nobly  fathered,  it  is  rather  curi- 
ous that  this  venerable  lady  should  have  been  the  mo- 
ther of  three  English  Peeresses.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Archbishop  of  Baltimore  was  one  of  the  company  : 
he  wore  his  long  violet  robes,  which  I  have  never  seen 
done  on  similar  occasions,  either  hi  Ireland  or  in  this 
country. 

From  Baltimore  I  transferred  myself  to  Washing- 
ton, the  seat  of  Government  and  capital  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union.  I  never  saw  so  strange  a  place ;  it  affords 
the  strongest  contrast  to  the  regularity,  compactness, 
neatness,  and  animation  of  the  Atlantic  cities  I  had 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  39 

hitherto  visited.  It  is  spread  over  a  very  large  space, 
in  this  way  justifying  the  expression  of  some  one  who 
wished  to  pay  it  a  compliment,  but  did  not  know  very 
well  what  attribute  to  select,  so  he  termed  it  a  "  city 
of  magnificent  distances,"  over  which  it  extends,  or 
rather  sprawls ;  it  looks  as  if  it  had  rained  houses  at 
random,  or  like  half  a  dozen  indifferent  villages  scat- 
tered over  a  goose  common.  Here  and  there,  as  if  to 
heighten  the  contrast  with  the  meanness  of  the  rest, 
there  are  some  very  handsome  public  buildings ;  and 
the  American  Capitol,  the  meeting-place  of  the  Legis- 
lature and  the  seat  of  empire,  though  not  exempt  from 
architectural  defects,  towers  proudly  on  a  steep  ascent, 
commanding  the  subject  town  and  the  course  of  the 
broad  Potomac,  which  makes  the  only  redeeming  fea- 
ture of  the  natural  landscape.  In  short,  while  almost 
every  other  place  which  I  saw  in  America,  gives  the 
impression  of  life  and  progress,  Washington  not  only 
appears  stagnant,  but  retrograde.  No  busy  commerce 
circulates  in  its  streets,  no  brilliant  shops  .diversify  its 
mean  ranges  of  ill-built  houses ;  but  very  few  equi- 
pages move  along  its  wide,  splashy,  dreary  avenues.  I 


40  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

saw  it,  too,  in  the  prime  of  its  season,  during  the  sit- 
ting of  Congress.  When  it  is  not  sitting  the  members 
of  the  Legislature  and  officers  of  the  Government  dis- 
pose themselves  over  the  breadth  of  the  Union,  and 
leave  the  capital  to  the  clerks  of  the  public  offices,  and 
does  it  not  seem  profanation  to  say  it  ? — the  slaves, 
who  are  still  permitted  to  inhabit  what  should  right- 
fully be  the  Metropolis  of  Freedom.  It  is  at  least 
gratifying  to  know  that,  in  the  last  session  of  Congress, 
the  slave  trade  has  been  abolished  in  the  district  of 
Columbia,  the  small  portion  of  territory  immediately 
annexed  to  Washington.  When  they  are  here,  the 
members  of  Congress  are  mostly  packed  together  in 
large  and  very  inferior  boarding-houses,  a  great  por- 
tion of  them  not  bringing  their  wives  and  families  over 
the  immense  distances  they  have  to  traverse  ;  hence  it 
also  happens  that  Washington  will  appear  to  the  stran- 
ger not  merely  one  of  the  least  thriving  but  also  the 
least  hospitable  of  American  cities.  I  spent  nearly  a 
month  there,  and  it  was  the  only  place  in  which  I 
(what  is  termed)  kept  house,  that  is,  I  resided  in  pri- 
vate lodgings,  and  found  my  own  food,  a  method  of 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  41 

life,  however,  which,  in  the  long  run,  has  more  com- 
fort and  independence  than  that  of  the  huge  hotels. 
It  was  a  contrast,  however,  to  the  large  armies  of 
waiters  to  which  I  had  grown  accustomed,  to  have  no 
one  in  the  house  but  an  old  woman  and  a  negro  boy, 
the  first  of  whom  my  English  servant  characterized  as 
cross,  and  the  second  as  stupid.  I  believe  it  was  the 
policy  of  the  founders  of  the  Kepublic  to  place  the 
seat  of  Government  where  it  would  not  be  liable  to  be 
distracted  by  the  turmoil  of  commerce,  or  over-awed 
by  the  violence  of  mobs  ;  we  have  heard  very  lately  of 
speculations  to  remove  the  seat  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment from  Paris.  Another  cause  which  has  probably 
contributed  to  check  any  designs  for  the  external  im- 
provement and  development  of  Washington,  must 
have  been  the  doubt  how  far  in  a  nation  which  is  ex- 
tending its  boundaries  westward  at  so  prodigious  a  rate, 
it  will  be  desirable  or  possible  long  to  retain  as  the  seat 
of  Government  a  spot  which  will  have  become  so  little 
central. 

What  gave  most  interest  to  my  stay  at  Washington 
naturally  was  the  opportunity  of  attending  the  sittings 


42  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

of  Congress.     The  interior  of  the  Capitol  is  imposing, 
as  well  as  the  exterior ;  in  the  Centre  Hall  there  were 
five  large  pictures,  illustrating  the  prominent  points  of 
American  history,  which  must  be  more  agreeable  to 
American  than  to  British  eyes.     There  is  also  a  fine 
colossal  statue  of  Washington,  who  is  universally  and 
not  unduly  called  the  father  of  his  country.      The 
Chamber  where  the  Senate  meets  is  handsome  and 
convenient.      The  general  aspect   of   the   assembly, 
which  (as  is  well  known)  shares  largely  both  in  the 
legislative  and  executive  powers  of  the  constitution,  is 
grave  and  decorous.     The  House  of  Representatives, 
the  more  popular  branch  of  the  Government,  returned 
by  universal  suffrage,  assemble  in  a  chamber  of  very 
imposing  appearance,  arranged  rather  like  a  theatre,  in 
shape  like  the  arc  of  a  bow,  but  it  is  the  worst  room 
for  hearing  I  ever  was  in ;  we  hear  complaints  occa- 
sionally of  our  Houses  of  Parliament,  old  and  new,  but 
they  are  faultless  in  comparison.      In  parts  of    the 
House  it  is  impossible  to  hear  any  body,  in  others  it 
answers  all  the  purposes  of  a  whispering  gallery,  and 
J  have  heard  members  carry  on  a  continuous  dialogue 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  43 

while  a  debate  was  storming  around  them.     Both  in 
the  Senate  and  the  House  every  member  has  a  most 
commodious  arm-chair,  a  desk  for  his  papers,  and  a 
spitting-box,  to  which  he  does  not  always  confine  him- 
self.    I  came  very  often,  and  it  was  impossible  to  sur- 
pass the  attention  I  received ;  some  member's  seat  in 
the  body  of  the  House  was  always  given  to  me,  and  I 
was  at  liberty  to  remain  there  during  the  whole  of  the 
debate,  listen  to  what  was  going  on,  or  write  my  letters, 
as  I  chose.     The  palpable  distinction  between  them 
and  our  House  of  Commons  I  should  say  to  be  this, 
we  are  more  noisy,  and  they  are  more  disorderly.  They 
do  not  cheer,  they  do  not  cough,  but  constantly  seve- 
ral are  speaking  at  a  time,  and  they  evince  a  contemp- 
tuous  disregard  for  the  decisions  of    their  speaker. 
They  have  no  recognized  leaders  of  the  different  par- 
ties, the  members  of  Government  not  being  allowed  to 
have  seats  in  either  House  of  Congress,  and  the  diffe- 
rent parties  do  not  occupy  distinct  quarters   in  the 
chamber,  so  that  you  may  often  hear  a  furious  wran- 
gle being  carried  on  between  two  nearly  contiguous 
members.     While  I  was  at  Washington,  the  question 


44  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

of  slavery,  or  at  least  of  points  connected  with  slavery, 
gave  the  chief  color  and  animation  to  the  discussions 
in  the  House  of  Representatives.  Old  Mr.  Adams, 
the  ex-president  of  the  United  States,  occupied,  with- 
out doubt,  the  most  prominent  position ;  he  presented 
a  very  striking  appearance,  standing  up  erect  at  the 
age  of  seventy-three,  having  once  filled  the  highest 
post  attainable  by  an  American  citizen,  with  trembling 
hands  and  eager  eyes,  in  defence  of  the  right  of  peti- 
tion,— the  right  to  petition  against  the  continuance  of 
slavery  in  the  district  of  Columbia,  with  a  majority  of 
the  House  usually  deciding  against  him,  and  a  portion 
of  it  lashed  into  noise  and  storm.  I  thought  it  was 
very  near  being,  and  to  some  extent  it  was,  quite  a 
sublime  position,  but  it  rather  detracted  from  the  gran- 
deur of  the  effect  at  least,  that  his  own  excitement  was 
so  great  as  to  pitch  his  voice  almost  into  a  screech, 
and  to  make  him  more  disorderly  than  all  the  rest. 
He  put  one  in  mind  of  a  fine  old  game-cock,  and  occa- 
sionally showed  great  energy  and  power  of  sarcasm. 
I  had  certainly  an  opportunity  of  forming  my  opinion, 
as  I  sat  through  a  speech  of  his  that  lasted  three  days ; 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  45 

but  then  it  is  fair  to  mention  that  the  actual  sittings 
hardly  last  above  three  hours  a  day — about  four,  din- 
ner is  ready,  and  they  go  away  for  the  day,  differing 
much  herein  from  our  practice  ;  and  on  this  occasion 
they  frequently  allowed  Mr.  Adams  to  sit  down  to  rest. 
All  the  time  I  believe  he  was  not  himself  for  the  dis- 
continuance of  slavery,  even  in  the  district  of  Colum- 
bia, but  he  contended  that  the  Constitution  had  ac- 
corded the  free  right  of  petition.  One  morning  he 
presented  a  petition  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
which  raised  a  great  tempest.  Mr.  Marshall,  of  Ken- 
tucky, a  fine  and  graceful  speaker,  moved  a  vote  of 
censure  upon  him.  Another  member,  whom  I  need 
not  name,  the  ablest  and  fiercest  champion  whom  I 
heard  on  the  southern  or  slaveholder  side,  made  a 
most  savage  onslaught  on  Mr.  Adams ;  then  up  got 
that  "  old  man  eloquent,"  and  no  one  could  have  re- 
proached him  with  not  understanding  how  to  speak 
even  daggers.  His  brave  but  somewhat  troublous 
spirit  has  passed  from  the  scenes  upon  which  he  played 
so  conspicuous  a  part,  but  he  has  left  behind  him  some 
words  of  fire,  the  sparks  of  which  are  not  yet  extinct. 


46  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

Nothing  came  of  all  this  stir;  I  used  to  meet  Mr. 
Adams  at  dinner  while  it  went  on,  very  calm  and  un- 
disturbed. After  seeing  and  hearing  what  takes  place 
in  some  of  these  sittings,  one  is  tempted  to  think  that 
the  Union  must  break  up  next  morning ;  but  the  flame 
appeared  generally  to  smoulder  almost  as  quickly  as  it 
ignited.  The  debates  in  the  Senate,  during  the  same 
period,  were  dignified,  business-like,  and  not  very  lively ; 
so  it  may  be  judged  which  House  had  most  attraction 
for  the  passing  traveller.  I  heard  Mr.  Clay  in  the 
Senate  once,  but  every  one  told  me  that  he  was  labor- 
ing under  feebleness  and  exhaustion,  so  that  I  could 
only  perceive  the  great  charm  in  the  tones  of  his  voice. 
I  think  this  most  attractive  quality  was  still  more  per- 
ceivable in  private  intercourse,  as  I  certainly  never  met 
any  public  man,  either  in  his  country  or  in  mine,  always 
excepting  Mr.  Canning,  who  exercised  such  evident 
fascination  over  the  minds  and  affections  of  his 
friends  and  followers,  as  Henry  Clay.  I  thought  his 
society  most  attractive,  easy,  simple,  and  genial, 
with  great  natural  dignity.  If  his  countrymen 
made  better  men  Presidents,  I  should  applaud  their 


TRAVELS    IN   AMERICA.  47 

virtue  in  resisting  the  spell  of  his  eloquence  and  at- 
tractions ;  when  the  actual  list  is  considered,  my  respect 
for  the  discernment  elicited  by  Universal  Suffrage  does 
not  stand  at  a  very  high  point.  Another  great  man, 
Daniel  Webster,  I  could  not  hear  in  either  House  of 
Congress,  because  he  then  filled,  as  he  does  now,  the 
high  office  of  Secretary  of  State ;  but  it  is  quite  enough 
to  look  on  his  jutting  dark  brow  and  cavernous  eyes, 
and  massive  forehead,  to  be  assured  that  they  are  the 
abode  of  as  much,  if  not  more,  intellectual  power  than 
any  head  you  perhaps  ever  remarked.  For  many,  if 
not  for  all  reasons,  I  am  well  content  that  he  should 
be  again  at  the  head  of  the  American  Cabinet,  for  I 
feel  sure  that  while  he  is  even  intensely  American,  he 
has  an  enlightened  love  of  peace,  and  a  cordial  sympa- 
thy with  the  fortunes  and  glories  of  the  old,  as  well  as 
the  new  Anglo-Saxon  stock.  The  late  Mr.  Calhoun, 
who  impressed  most  of  those  who  were  thrown  in  his 
way  with  a  high  opinion  of  his  ability,  his  honesty,  and, 
I  may  add,  his  impracticability,  I  had  not  the  good 
fortune  to  hear  in  public,  or  meet  in  private  society. 
It  is  well  known  that  his  attachment  to  the  maintenance 


48  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

of  slavery  went  so  far  as  to  lead  him  to  declare  that 
real  freedom  could  not  be  maintained  without  it. 
Among  those  who  at  that  time  contributed  both  to  the 
credit  and  gayety  of  the  society  of  Washington,  I  can- 
not forbear  adding  the  name  of  Mr.  Legare,  then  the 
Attorney-General  of  the  Union,  now  unhappily,  like 
too  many  of  those  whom  I  have  had  occasion  to  men- 
tion,.no  longer  living.  He  appeared  to  me  the  best 
scholar,  and  the  most  generally  accomplished  man,  I 
met  in  all  the  Union.  I  may  feel  biassed  in  his  favor, 
for  I  find  among  my  entries,  "  Mr.  Legare  spoke  to- 
night of  Pope  as  he  ought." 

I  have  not  mentioned  what  might  be  thought  of  a 
very  prominent  object  at  Washington — the  President 
of  the  United  States.  He  resides  for  his  term  of  office 
at  a  substantial  plain  building,  called  the  White  House. 
Mr.  Tyler  filled  the  office  when  I  was  there,  and  ap- 
peared a  simple,  unaffected  person.  Washington  is 
the  headquarters  of  another  branch  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  works  perhaps  with  less  of  friction  and 
censure  than  any  other,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Judica- 
ture. The  large  federal  questions  between  State  and 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  40 

State  give  great  weight  and  interest  to  its  proceedings. 
I  heard  an  interesting  cause  between  the  States  of 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania ;  it  was  an  action  to  try 
the  constitutional  validity  of  an  act  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania,  which  gave  a  trial  by  jury  to  the  fugitive 
slave.     How  this  subject  pursued  and  pervaded  every 
thing !     It  was  argued  with  great  ability  on  both  sides ; 
it  was  ultimately  ruled  against  the  power  of  the  free 
States  to  pass  such  an  act ;  and  the  recent  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  may  probably  have  arisen  out  of  some  such 
debatable  questions  of  right ;   at  all  events,  it  has  en- 
tirely swept  away  the  intervention  of  a  jury. 

The  last  day  of  my  abode. at  Washington  was  spent 
becomingly  at  Mount  Yernon,  the  residence,  and  now 
the  grave,  of  Washington.  It  is  well  placed  on  a 
wooded  hill  above  the  noble  Potomac,  here  a  mile  and 
a  half  broad.  The  tomb  is  a  sad  affair  for  such  a  man ; 
ic  has  an  inscription  upon  it  denoting  that  it  was  erectd 
by  John  Strutters,  marble  mason  !  It  is  placed  under 
a  glaring  red  building,  something  between  a  coach- 
house and  a  cage ;  the  Senate  once  procured  the  con- 
sent of  the  family  to  have  it  removed  to  the  Capitol, 
3 


50  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

when  a  bricklayer,  a  laborer,  and  a  cart  arrived  to  take 
it  off  one  morning,  at  which  their  indignation  naturally 
rose.  There  are  few  things  remarkable  in  the  house, 
except  the  key  of  the  Bastille  sent  by  General  Lafayette 
to  General  Washington,  and  a  sword  sent  to  him  by 
Frederick  the  Great,  with  this  address,  "From  the 
Oldest  General  of  the  age  to  the  Best."  I  was  grati- 
fied to  see  a  print  from  my  picture  of  the  Three  Maries. 
Did  it  ever  excite  the  interest  and  the  piety  of  Wash- 
ington ? 

I  made  a  rapid  journey,  by  steamboat  and  railroad, 
through  the  States  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina ; 
the  country  wore  a  universal  impress  of  exhaustion, 
desertion,  slavery.  It  appears  to  be  one  of  the  trials 
or  the  cupidity  of  man,  that  slavery,  notwithstanding 
all  its  drawbacks,  has  a  certain  degree  of  adaptation, 
not  I  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God,  a  necessary  adaptation, 
to  the  culture  of  fertile  soils  in  hot  climates ;  but  in 
sterile  or  exhausted  soils,  where  the  energy  of  man 
must  be  called  out  to  overcome  difficulties,  it  is  evident 
that  slavery  has  no  elastic  spring  or  restorative  power. 
Richmond,  the  capital  of  Virginia,  has  a  certain  re- 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  51 

semblance  in  position  to  its  namesake  in  Surrey ;  I  saw 
the  local  Legislature  in  session;  it  was  very  full  of 
coarse-looking  farmers  from  the  western  portion  of  the 
State ;  it  struck  me  that  the  acute  town  lawyers  must 
manage  matters  much  as  they  choose.  I  never  saw 
a  country  so  hopeless  as  all  that  I  passed  through  in 
North  Carolina — a  flat,  sandy  waste  of  pines,  with 
scarcely  a  habitation.  I  spent  a  fortnight  at  Charles- 
ton, the  capital  of  her  more  energetic  sister,  South 
Carolina  ;  this  town  and  State  may  be  looked  upon  as 
the  headquarters  of  the'  slaveholding  interest;  and 
repeatedly,  when  they  have  thought  the  policy  of  the 
North  too  encroaching  either  upon  questions  relating 
to  what  they  term  their  peculiar  institutions,  which  is 
their  euphonious  description  of  slavery,  or  when  we 
should  feel  a  juster  sympathy  with  them,  upon  ques^ 
tions  relating  to  the  protection  of  the  northern  manu- 
factures in  opposition  to  a  liberal  commercial  policy, 
they  have  not  only  held  the  very  highest  tone  in  favor 
of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  but  have  proceeded  to 
overt  acts  of  resistance.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  spent 
my  time  there  very  pleasantly ;  there  was  much  gayety 


52  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA* 

and  unbounded  hospitally.  I  have  made  no  disguise 
of  what  my  opinions  upon  slavery  were,  are,  and  ever 
must  be ;  but  it  would  be  uncandid  to  deny  that  the 
planter  in  the  Southern  States  has  much  more  in  his 
manner  and  mode  of  intercourse  that  resembles  the 
English  country  gentleman  than  any  other  class  of  his 
countrymen  ;  he  is  more  easy,  companionable,  fond  of 
country  life,  and  out-of-door  pursuits.  I  went  with  a 
remarkably  agreeable  party  to  spend  a  day  at  the  rice 
plantation  of  one  of  their  chief  proprietors;  he  had 
the  credit  of  being  an  excellent  manager,  and  his  ne- 
groes, young  and  old,  seemed  well  taken  care  of  and 
looked  after ;  he  repelled  the  idea — not  of  educating 
them — that  is  highly  penal  by  the  law  of  the  State, 
but  of  letting  them  have  any  religious  instruction.  I 
was  told  by  others  that  there  was  considerable  im- 
provement in  this  respect.  Many  whom  I  met  enter- 
tained no  doubt  that  slavery  would  subsist  among 
them  for  ever ;  others  were  inclined  to  think  that  it 
would  wear  out.  While  I  was  willing  not  to  shut  my 
eyes  to  any  of  the  more  favorable  external  symptoms 
or  mitigations  of  slavery,  other  indications  could  not 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  53 

come  across  my  path  without  producing  deep  repug- 
nance. On  the  veiy  first  night  of  my  arrival,  I  heard 
the  deep  sound  of  a  curfew  bell ;  on  inquiry  I  was  told, 
that  after  it  had  sounded  every  night  at  about  nine 
o'clock,  no  colored  person,  slave  or  free — mark  that — 
might  be  seen  in  the  streets.  One  morning,  accord- 
ingly, I  saw  a  great  crowd  of  colored  persons  in  the 
street,  and  I  found  they  were  waiting  to  see  a  large 
number  of  their  color,  who  had  been  taken  up  the 
night  before  on  their  return  from  a  ball,  escorted  in 
their  ball-dresses  from  the  jail  to  the  court-house. 
Indeed,  it  was  almost  principally  with  relation  to  the 
free  blacks  that  the  anomalous  and  indefensible  work- 
ing of  the  system  appeared  there  to  develope  itself.  I 
was  told  that  the  slaves  themselves  looked  down  upon 
the  free  blacks,  and  called  them  rubbish.  I  must  not 
omit  to  state  that  I  saw  one  slave  auction  in  the  open 
street,  arising  from  the  insolvency  of  the  previous 
owner ;  a  crowd  stood  round  the  platform,  on  which 
sat  the  auctioneer,  and  beside  him  were  placed  in  suc- 
cession the  lots  of  from  one  to  five  negroes.  The 
families  seemed  to  be  all  put  up  together;  but  I  ima- 


54  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

gine  they  must  often  be  separated  ;  they  comprised 
infants  and  all  ages.  As  far  as  I  could  judge,  they 
exhibited  great  indifference  to  their  changing  destiny. 
I  heard  the  auctioneer  tell  one  old  man,  whom  I  could 
have  hardly  distinguished  from  a  white  person,  that  he 
had  been  bought  by  a  good  master.  One  could  not  help 
shuddering  at  the  future  lot  of  those  who  were  not  the 
subjects  of  this  congratulation. 

I  went  into  the  Head  Court  of  Justice  at  Charleston, 
and  found  seven  persons  present ;  five  of  them  were 
judges,  one  was  the  lawyer  addressing  them,  the  other 
was  the  opposing  counsel,  who  was  walking  up  and 
down  the  room.  I  attended  a  meeting  of  the  conven- 
tion of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  South  Carolina; 
whether  it  may  be  for  encouragement  or  warning 
to  those  who  wish  for  the  introduction  or  revival  of 
such  synods  at  home,  I  mention  the  point  then  under 
discussion;  it  was  how  far  it  was  proper  to  show 
deference  for  the  opinion  of  the  Bishop. 

In  point  of  neatness,  cleanliness,  and  order,  the  slave- 
holding  States  appeared  to  stand  in  about  the  same 
relation  to  the  free,  as  Ireland  does  to  England ;  every 


TRAVELS    IN     AMERICA.  55 

thing  appears  slovenly,  ill-arranged,  incomplete ;  win- 
dows do  not  shut,  doors  do  not  fasten ;  there  is  a 
superabundance  of  hands  to  do  every  thing,  and  little 
is  thoroughly  done.  The  country  round  Charleston 
for  scores,  and  I  believe  hundreds  of  miles,  is  perfectly 
flat,  and  full  of  swamps,  but  there  I  had  the  first  indi- 
cations of  the  real  genius  of  the  South,  in  the  white 
houses  lined  with  verandahs,  the  broad-leaved  deep 
green  magnolias  and  wild  orange  trees  in  the  gardens, 
the  large  yellow  jessamine  and  palmetto  in  the  hedges, 
and  the  pendent  streamers  of  gray  moss  on  the  under 
branches  of  the  rich  evergreen  live-oak,  which  supplies 
unrivalled  timber  for  ship-building. 

I  left  Charleston  in  a  small  American  mail-packet, 

0 

for  the  Island  of  Cuba.  I  must  not  dwell  on  the  voy- 
age, Vhich,  from  our  being  much  becalmed,  lasted 
twelve  days,  double  its  due ;  we  were  long  off  the  low 
flat  coast  of  Georgia  and  Florida,  and  I  felt  inclined  to 
say  with  Goldsmith — 

"  And  wild  Altama  echoed  to  our  woe." 

On  the  14th  of  March  we  passed  under  the  impreg- 


56  TRAVELS    IN7    AMERICA. 

nable  rock  of  the  Castle,  called  the  Moro,  and,  answer- 
ing the  challenge  from  its  terraced  battlements,  we 
found  ourselves  in  the  unrivalled  harbor  of*the  Havana. 
How  enchanting,  to  the  senses  at  least,  were  the  three 
weeks  I  spent  in  Cuba !  How  my  memory  turns  to  its 
picturesque  forms  and  balmy  skies.  During  my  whole 
stay,  the  thermometer  scarcely  varied  from  76°  to  78° 
in  the  shade.  I  am  disposed  to  wonder  that  these  re- 
gions are  not  more  resorted  to  by  our  countrymen  for 
enjoyment  of  life,  and  escape  from  death.  Nothing 
was  ever  so  unlike  either  Europe  or  America  as  the 
Havana ;  at  least  I  had  never  been  in  Spain,  the  mother 
country,  which  I  suppose  it  most  resembles.  The 
courts  of  the  gleaming  white  houses  have  a  Moorish 
look,  the  interiors  are  much  covered  with  arabesques, 
and  on  the  outside  towards  the  street  they  have  im- 
mense open  spaces  for  windows,  in  which  they  gener- 
ally find  it  superfluous  to  put  any  glass ;  the  carriages 
are  called  Volantes,  and  look  as  if  they  had  been  in- 
tended to  carry  Don  Quixote.  Then  how  delicious  it 
used  to  be,  late  in  the  evening,  under  a  moonlight  we 
can  scarcely  imagine,  to  sit  in  the  square  called  the 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  57 

Place  of  Arms,  where  in  a  space  flanked  by  some 
gleaming  palm-trees,  and  four  small  fountains,  a  gay 
crowd  listened  to  excellent  music  from  a  Spanish  mili- 
tary band.  It  is  certainly  the  handsomest  town  I  saw 
in  the  New  World,  and  gives  a  great  idea  of  the  luxury 
and  splendor  of  Spain  in  her  palmy  days.  The  billiard 
rooms  and  ice  saloons  streamed  with  light ;  the  great 
theatre  is  as  large  and  brilliant  as  almost  any  hi  Europe. 
Again,  how  full  of  interest  were  some  visits  I  paid  in 
the  interior,  both  to  Spanish  and  American  households. 
I  cannot  condense  my  impressions  of  the  scenery  better 
than  by  repeating  some  short  stanzas  which  with  such 
influences  around  me  I  could  not  help  perpetrating.  I 
hope  that  while  they  bear  witness  to  the  intoxicating 
effects  of  the  landscape  and  the  climate,  they  do  not 
wholly  leave  out  of  view  the  attendant  moral. 

Ye  tropic  forests  of  unfading  green, 
Where  the  palm  tapers,  and  the  orange  glows. 

Where  the  light  bamboo  weaves  her  feathery  screen, 
And  her  tall  shade  the  matchless  seyba  throws: 

Ye  cloudless  ethers  of  unchanging  blue, 

Save  as  its  rich  varieties  give  way 
To  the  clear  sapphire  of  your  midnight  hue, 

The  burnished  azure  of  your  perfect  day. 

3* 


58  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

Yet  tell  me  not  my  native  skies  are  bleak, 
That  flushed  with  liquid  wealth,  no  cane-flelds  wave; 

For  Virtue  pines,  and  Manhood  dares  not  speak, 
And  Nature's  glories  brighten  round  the  Slave. 

Among  the  country-houses  I  visited  was  the  sugar 
estate  of  one  of  the  chief  Creole  nobles  of  the  island 
(I  do  not  know  whether  my  hearers  will  be  aware  that 
the  proper  meaning  of  a  Creole  is  a  person  of  European 
descent  born  in  America) :  I  was  treated  there  with 
the  most  refined  and  courteous  hospitality ;  and  what 
a  view  it  was  from  the  terrace  of  golden  cane-fields, 
and  fringing  woods,  and  azure  sea !  The  treatment  of 
the  domestic  slaves  appeared  kind  and  affectionate,  and 
all  the  negro  children  on  the  estate  repeated  their  cate- 
chism to  the  priest,  and  were  then  brought  in  to  dance 
and  romp  in  the  drawing-room.  Generally  there  does 
not  appear  to  be  the  same  amount  of  repulsion  between 
the  white  and  colored  races  as  in  the  United  States, 
and  there  is  the  pleasant  spectacle  of  their  being  mixed 
together  in  the  churches.  Still  the  crying  conclusive 
fact  remains,  that  the  average  negro  population  died 
off  in  ten  years,  and  had  to  be  recruited  by  continuous 
importations,  which  are  so  many  breaches  of  the  solemn 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  59 

treaties  between  Spain  and  us.  On  one  coffee  estate 
which  I  visited  (and  "generally  the  coffee  cultivation 
is  far  lighter  than  that  of  the  sugar  cane),  a  still  darker 
shade  was  thrown  upon  the  system,  as  I  was  told  from 
a  most  authentic  source  that  there  was  great  difficulty 
in  preventing  mothers  from  killing  their  offspring. 
General  Valdez,  who  was  captain-general  of  the  island 
during  my  visit,  is  thought  to  have  exerted  himself 
honestly  in  putting  down  the  slave  trade.  I  believe  it 
has  been  as  much  encouraged  as  ever  under  some  of 
his  successors.  The  politics  of  Cuba  are  rather  deli- 
cate ground  to  tread  upon  just  now,  and  are  likely  to 
be  continually  shifting ;  it  appeared  to  me  that  all  the 
component  parties  held  each  other  in  check,  like  the 
people  who  are  all  prevented  from  killing  each  other 
in  the  farce  of  the  Critic.  The  despotism  and  exclu- 
siveness  of  the  mother  country  were  complete ;  every 
one  gave  the  same  picture  of  the  corruption  and  de- 
moralization which  pervaded  every  department  of  ad- 
ministration and  justice.  The  Creoles  are  prevented 
from  rising  against  this  system,  from  dread  of  the 
negroes  rising  against  them,  over  and  above  the  large 


60  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

Spanish  force  always  kept  on  foot  there ;  the  Ameri- 
cans, who  have  got  possession  of  a  large  proportion  of 
the  estates,  do  not  like  to  hazard  any  attempt  at  an- 
nexation, without  at  least  adequate  aid  from  other 
quarters,  as  they  would  have  to  deal  with  the  Spanish 
army,  some  of  the  Creoles,  and  all  the  negroes  ;  and 
the  negroes,  the  most  deeply  wronged  party  of  any, 
would  bring  down  on  themselves,  in  case  of  any  gene- 
ral rising  amongst  them,  the  Spaniards,  Creoles,  Amer- 
icans within,  and  Americans  without.  May  the 
providence  of  God  reserve  for  these  enchanting 
shores  more  worthy  destinies  than  they  have  ever  yet 
enjoyed ! 

; 

1  availed  myself  of  the  magnificent  accommodation 
of  one  of  our  West  India  line-of-packet  steamers, 
which  deposited  us  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi. 
I  repined  at  the  course  of  the  vessel,  receding  from 
the  sun,  and  at  first  I  thought  every  thing  looked 
dingy,  after  the  skies  and  vegetation  of  the  tropics.  I 
missed  especially  the  palm,  the  cocoa,  and  the  seyba, 
but  there  was  still  the  orange  tree,  and,  what  they 
have  not  in  Cuba,  the  magnolia,  a  forest  tree  in  full 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  61 

blossom :  the  sugar  plantations  of  Louisiana  seemed 
kept  in  very  trim  order :  we  passed  the  ground  made 
memorable  by  the  victory  of  General  Jackson  over 
the  English,  and  soon  drew  up  among  the  numerous 
tiers  of  masts  and  steamboats  that  line  the  crescent 
outline  of  New  Orleans. 

The  good  I  have  to  say  of  New  Orleans  must  be 
chiefly  confined  to  the  St.  Charles  Hotel,  which  is  the 
most  splendid  of  its  kind  that  I  saw  even  in  the  Uni- 
ted States.  When  it  is  at  its  full  complement  560  dine 
there  every  day — 350  of  whom  sleep  in  the  house  ; 
there  are  160  servants,  7  French  cooks ;  all  the  wait- 
ers, whites — Irish,  English,  French,  German,  and 
American  ;  the  very  intelligent  proprietor  of  the  hotel 
told  me  he  thought  the  Irish  made  the  best ;  he  has 
them  all  together  every  day  at  noon,  when  they  go 
through  a  regular  drill,  and  rehearse  the  service  of  a 
dinner.  Nothing  can  be  more  distinct  than  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  American  and  French  portions  of  the 
town  ;  the  American  is  laid  out  in  broad  streets,  high 
houses,  and  large  stores ;  the  French  in  narrow  streets, 
which  suits  a  warm  climate  better  perhaps,  and  a  great 


62  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

proportion  of  one-storied  houses,  which  they  thought 
a  better  security  agaist  hurricanes.  I  spent  my  time 
not  unpleasantly,  particularly  two  days  at  the  planta- 
tion of  an  opulent  proprietor,  where  the  slaves  seemed 
the  subject  of  much  thoughtful  attention  as  far  as 
their  physical  condition  is  concerned :  the  weather  at 
this  season, — the  middle  of  April, — was  delicious,  but 
it  is  the  last  place  in  the  world  I  should  choose  for  a 
residence.  For  long  periods  the  climate  is  most  nox- 
ious to  human  life ;  it  is  the  occasional  haunt  of  the 
yellow  fever,  the  river  runs  at  a  higher  level  than  the 
town,  and  the  putrid  swamp  is  ever  ready  to  ooze 
through  the  thin  layer  of  rank  soil  above  it;  and, 
worse  than  any  merely  natural  malaria,  the  dregs  of 
the  worst  type  of  the  French  and  American  character, 
notwithstanding  the  more  wholesome  elements  by 
which  their  influence  is  undoubtedly  tempered,  impart 
a  moral  taint  to  the  social  atmosphere. 

Though  in  my  journey  henceforward  1  passed  over 
immense  spaces,  and  saw  great  varieties  of  scenes  and 
men,  yet  as  it  became  now  more  of  a  matter  of  real 
travelling,  and  did  not  show  me  so  much  of  the  inner 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  63 

social  life,  it  will  be  a  relief  to  you  to  hear,  especially 
after  the  lengthened  trespass  I  have  already  made  on 
your  attention,  that  I  shall  get  over  the  remaining 
ground  far  more  rapidly.  I  went  from  New  Orleans 
to  Louisville  on  board  the  Henry  Clay  steamer,  1500 
miles,  which  lasted  six  days  ;  the  first  1100  were  on 
the  Mississippi.  It  is  impossible  to  be  on  the  Father 
of  Waters,  as  I  believe  the  name  denotes,  without  some 
emotion ;  its  breadth  hardly  appears  so  imposing  as 
that  of  many  far  inferior  streams  ;  at  New  Orleans  it 
must  be  under  three-quarters  of  a  mile,  but  its  width 
rather  paradoxically  increases  as  you  rece  !e  from  its 
mouth  ;  its  color  is  that  of  a  murky,  pulpy,  yellowish 
mud,  but  still  its  full  deep  brimming  volume  pleases, 
chiefly,  I  suppose,  from  the  knowledge  that  thus  it 
rolls  on  for  5000  miles,  and  waters  a  valley  capable 
of  feeding  the  world ;  there  is  little  break  of  outline, 
but  the  continuous  parallel  lines  of  forest  are  partially 
dotted,  first  by  the  sugar  fields  of  Louisiana,  then  by 
the  cotton  inclosures  of  the  States  of  Mississippi  and 
Tennessee,  then  by  the  rich  meadows  of  Kentucky. 
For  the  last  400  miles  we  left  the  sovereign  river,  and 


64  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

struck  up  the  Ohio,  christened  by  the  French  the  beau- 
tiful river,  and  deserving  the  name  from  the  swelling 
wooded  slopes  which  fringe  its  current ;  its  soft  native 
name  of  Ohio,  means  "  the  gently  flowing."  Louis- 
ville is  a  flourishing  town ;  thence  I  dived  into  the  in- 
terior of  Kentucky,  and  paid  a  visit  of  two  or  three 
days  to  Mr.  Clay,  at  his  country  residence  of  Ashland. 
The  qualities  which  rivet  the  Senate  and  captivate  his 
adherents,  seemed  to  me  both  heightened  and  softened 
by  his  frank,  courteous,  simple  intercourse.  He  lives 
with  his  family  in  a  modest  house,  among  fields  of  deep 
red  soil  and  the  most  luxuriant  grass,  growing  under 
very  thriving  and  varied  timber,  the  oak,  sycamore, 
locust-tree,  cedar,  and  that  beautiful  ornament  of  Ame- 
rican woods,  the  sugar  maple.  He  likes  showing  some 
English  cattle.  His  countrymen  seem  to  be  in  the  habit 
of  calling  upon  him  without  any  kind  of  previous  in- 
troduction. Slavery,  generally  mild  in  the  pastoral 
State  of  Kentucky,  was  certainly  seen  here  in  its  least 
repulsive  guise ;  Mr.  Clay's  own  negro  servant,  Charles, 
was  much  devoted  to  him  ;  he  took  him  with  him  on 
a  tour  into  Canada,  and  when  some  abolitionists  there 


* 

TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  65 

wanted  him  to  leave  his  master,  "  Not  if  you  were  to 
give  me  both  your  provinces,"  was  the  reply. 

My  next  halt  was  at  the  White  Sulphur  Springs  in 
the  western  portion  of  Virginia.  The  season  had  not 
yet  commenced,  early  in  May,  so  I  was  in  sole  posses- 
sion of  the  place.  One  of  my  southern  friends  had 
kindly  placed  a  delightful  little  cottage  at  my  disposal, 
and  I  enjoyed  in  the  highest  degree  the  unwonted  re- 
pose in  the  solitude  of  virgin  forests,  and  the  recesses 
of  the  green  Alleghanies.  Here  were  my  brief  Fare- 
well lines  to  the  small  temple-like  cupola  over  the 
bright  sulphur  well  from  which  I  used  to  drink  many 
times  in  the  day : — 

Hail  dome !  whose  unpresuming  circle  guards 
Virginia's  flowing  fountain :  still  may  health 
Hover  above  thy  crystal  urn,  and  bring 
To  cheeks  unused  their  bloom !  may  Beauty  still 
Sit  on  thy  billowy  swell  of  wooded  hills, 
And  deep  ravines  of  verdure ;  may  the  axe, 
Improvement's  necessary  pioneer, 
Mid  forest  solitudes,  still  gently  pierce,'   . 
Not  bare  their  leafy  bowers !    This  votiye  lay, 
Like  wreath  of  old  on  thy  white  columns  hung, 
Albeit  of  scentless  flowers  from  foreign  soil, 
Scorn  not,  and  bid  the  Pilgrim  pass  in  peace. 


66  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  % 

I  had,  at  this  time,  much  travelling  in  the  stage 
coaches,  and  I  found  it  amusing  to  sit  by  the  different 
coachmen,  who  were  generally  youths  from  the  East- 
ern States,  pushing  their  way  in  life,  and  full  of  fresh 
and  racy  talk.  One  said  to  me,  lamenting  the  amount 
of  debt  which  the  State  through  which  we  were  tra- 
velling had  incurred,  "  I  suppose  your  State  has  no 
debt," — a  compliment  I  could  not  quite  appropriate. 
Another,  who  probably  came  from  New- York,  where 
they  do  not  like  to  use  the  word  Master  in  speaking 
of  their  employers,  but  prefer  an  old  Dutch  name,  Boss, 
said  to  me,  "  I  suppose  the  Queen  is  your  Boss  now." 

I  again  turned  my  face  to  the  West,  and  passed 
Cincinnati,  which,  together  with  all  that  I  saw  of  the 
State  of  Ohio,  seemed  to  me  the  part  of  the  Union 
where,  if  obliged  to  make  the  choice,  I  should  like  best 
to  fix  my  abode.  It  has  a  great  share  of  all  the  civili- 
zation and  appliances  of  the  old  settled  States  of  the 
East,  with  the  richer  soil,  the  softer  climate,  the  fresher 
spring  of  life,  which  distinguish  the  West.  It  had  be- 
sides to  me  the  great  attraction  of  being  the  first  Free 
State  which  I  reached  on  my  return  from  the  region  of 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  67 

Slavery,  and  the  contrast  in  the  appearance  of  prosperity 
and  progress  is  just  what  a  friend  of  freedom  would 
always  wish  it  to  be.  One  of  my  visitors  at  Cincinnati 
told  me  he  remembered  when  the  town  only  contained 
a  few  log  cabins  ;  when  I  was  there  it  had  50,000  in- 
habitants. I  shall  not  easily  forget  an  evening  view 
from  a  neighboring  hill,  over  loamy  cornfields,  woody 
knolls,  and  even  some  vineyards,  just  where  the  Miami 
River  discharges  its  gentle  stream  into  the  ample  Ohio. 
I  crossed  the  States  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  looked  for 
the  first  time  on  the  wide  level  and  waving  grass  of  a 
prairie — stopped  a  short  time  at  St.  Louis,  once  a  French 
station,  now  the  flourishing  capital  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri. I  passed  the  greatest  confluence  of  rivers  on  the 
face  of  our  globe,  where  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri 
blend  their  giant  currents  ;  the  whole  river  ought  pro- 
perly to  have  gone  by  the  name  of  the  Missouri,  as  it 
is  by  far  the  most  considerable  stream,  its  previous 
course  before  the  junction  exceeding  the  entire  course 
of  the  Mississippi  both  before  and  after  it ;  it  is  the  Mis- 
souri, too,  which  imparts  its  color  to  the  united  stream, 
and  for  two  or  three  miles  you  distinguish  its  ochrer 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 


colored  waters  as  they  line  the  hitherto  clear  current 
of  the  Upper  Mississippi.  At  Jacksonville,  in  Illinois, 
I  was  told  a  large  colony  of  Yorkshiremen  were  set- 
tled, anrl  I  was  the  more  easily  induced  to  believe  it, 
as  it  seemed  to  me  about  the  most  thriving  and  best 
cultivated  neighborhood  I  had  seen.  I  embarked  at 
Chicago  on  the  great  lakes :  but  here  I  must  desist  from 
pursuing  my  devious  wanderings  on  those  large  inland 
seas,  and  on  the  opposite  shore  of  Canada.  Many  thou- 
sands of  miles  have  I  steamed  away  over  Lakes  Michi- 
gan, Huron,  Erie,  Ontario ;  the  Rideau  Canal,  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  Ottawa  rivers ;  some  of  these  I  traversed 
twice,  and  they  supplied  some  of  the  most  interesting 
and  picturesque  features  of  my  long  journeyings.  I 
should  have  scrupled  in  any  case  to  touch  upon  the 
politics  of  Canada,  and  indeed  my  pauses  at  any  fixed 
spot  were  too  short  to  qualify  me  for  the  attempt,  even 
if  it  had  been  desirable.  It  is  a  magnificent  region,  es- 
pecially its  western  portion — happy  in  climate,  soil,  and 
scenery.  I  will,  however,  only  attempt  to  dash  off  two 
slight  sketches  from  my  Canadian  recollections.  Here 
is  the  first.  I  stood  in  a  terraced  garden  on  the  sum- 


TRAVELS    IV    AMERICA.  69 

mit  of  a  high  promontory,  running  with  a  steep  angle 
into  the  basin  made  by  the  river  St.  Lawrence,  of  which 
it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  water  is  as  clear, 
bright,  and,  above  all,  green  as  any  emerald ;  here,  up- 
on I  believe  the  most  imperial  sita  in  the  world,  stand 
the  citadel  and  city  of  Quebec :  the  shipping  was  lying 
in  great  quantity  close  under  the  rocky  steep,  and  was 
dotted  for  a  considerable  way  along  the  shining  river  ; 
in  front  was  the  island  of  Orleans,  well-shaped  and 
full-peopled ;  ridge  upon  ridge  beyond,  ending  with 
Cape  Tourment,  descended  on  the  river  ;  the  shore  on 
either  side  gleamed  with  white  villages,  and  the  town 
below  seemed  to  climb  or  almost  leap  up  the  straight 
precipice,  broken  with  high  convent  roofs  and  glittering 
tinned  spires.  The  flag  of  England  waved  upon  the 
highest  bastion  that  crowned  the  rock,  the  band  of  the 
Queen's  Guards  was  playing  in  the  garden,  the  clearest 
blue  of  western  skies  was  above  my  head,  and,  rising 
above  the  whole  glowing  scene,  was  the  commemorative 
pillar  to  that  General  Wolfe,  who  on  this  spot  transferred 
to  us  Englishmen,  by  his  own  victory  and  death,  and 
with  the  loss  of  forty-five  men,  the  mastery  of  a  continent. 


70  TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 

The  only  other  scene  I  will  attempt  to  sketch  shall 
be  in  the  centre  of  Lake  Huron,  on  one  of  its  countless 
islands.  I  am  justified  in  using  that  epithet,  since  not 
long  ago  our  Government  ordered  a  survey  to  be  made 
of  the  islands  ;  they  counted  40,000,  and  then  gave  it 
lip  ;  and  some  of  these  were  of  no  contemptible  size, 
one  of  them  being  ninety  miles  long.  I  was  one  of  a 
party  which  at  that  time  went  annually  up  the  lake  to 
attend  an  encampment  of  many  thousand  Indians,  and 
make  a  distribution  of  presents  among  them.  About 
sunset  our  flotilla  of  seven  canoes,  manned  well  by  In- 
dian and  French  Canadian  crews  drew  up  ;  some  of 
the  rowers  cheering  the  end  of  the  day's  work  with 
snatches  of  a  Canadian  boat-song.  We  disembarked 
on  some  rocky  islet  which,  as  probably  as  not,  had 
never  felt  the  foot  of  man  before  ;  in  a  few  moments 
the  utter  solitude  had  become  a  scene  of  bustle  and 
business,  carried  on  by  the  sudden  population  of  some 
sixty  souls  ;  tents  had  been  pitched  in  which  we  were 
to  sleep  ;  small  trees  had  been  cut  for  fuel ;  fires  had 
been  lighted  round  which  the  motley  crews  were  pre- 
paring the  evening  meal ;  some  were  bathing  in  the 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  71 

transparent  little  bays,  some  standing  on  a  jutting 
piece  of  cliff,  fishing ;  and  here  and  there  an  Indian 
in  the  water,  motionless,  watching  with  an  intent  gaze, 
a  spear  in  his  hand  ready  to  dart  on  his  prey  be- 
neath. A  large  oil-cloth  had  been  spread  for  our  party 
on  a  convenient  ledge  of  rock  ;  hot  pea  soup,  hot  fish, 
the  chase  of  the  day,  and  large  cold  rounds  of  beef, 
showed  that,  though  we  were  in  the  desert,  we  did 
not  fare  like  anchorites  ;  and  the  summer  moon  rose 
on  the  scattered  fires,  and  the  gay  bivouac,  and  the 
snatches  of  song  and  chorus  that  from  time  to  time 
woke  the  unaccustomed  echoes  of  Lake  Huron. 

Entering  the  United  States  again,  I  made  a  rapid 
journey,  by  Lakes  Champlam  and  George,  by  Ticon- 
deroga  and  Saratoga,  historic  names ;  spent  four  very 
delightful  days  in  most  attractive  society  in  a  New 
England  village,  revived  the  beauteous  impressions 
of  the  Hudson,  and,  taking  leave  of  friends  not  soon 
to  be  forgotten,  on  the  quay  of  New- York,  left  the 
hospitable  shore. 

You  will  have  perceived,  that  in  these  desultory 
notes  I  have  not  attempted  to  pronounce  any  formal 


72  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

judgment  upon  the  American  people,  or  the  great  ex- 
periment they  are  conducting  in  the  face  of  the  world. 
The  extreme  diversity  of  habits,  manners,  opinions, 
feelings,  race,  and  origin,  in  the  several  parts  of  the 
wide  extent  of  country  I  traversed,  would  render  the 
difficulty,  great  in  any  case,  of  such  an  undertaking, 
still  more  subtle  and  complicated.     The  striking  con- 
trasts in  such  a  shifting  and  variegated  aspect  of  soci- 
ety, make  me  feel  that  any  such  general  and  dashing 
summary  could  only  be  attempted  after  the  fashion  of 
a  passage  which  I  have  always  much  admired  in  Gib- 
bon, where,  wishing  to  give  a  fair  view  of  the  poetical 
character  of  Claudian,  he  sums  up  separately  his  mer- 
its and  defects,  and  leaves  his  reader  to  strike  the  just 
balance.     In  some  such  mode  it  might  be  stated  that 
North  America,  viewed  at  first  with  respect  to  her  nat- 
ural surface,  exhibits  a  series  of  scenery,  various,  rich, 
and,  in  some  of  its  features,  unparalleled ;  though  she 
cannot,  on  the  whole,  equal  Europe  in  her  mountain 
elevations,  how  infinitely  does  she  surpass  her  in  rivers, 
estuaries,  and  lakes.     This  variegated  surface  of  earth 
and  water  is  seen  under  a  sky  warm,  soft»  and  balmy 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  73 

in  some — clear,  blue,  and  brilliant  in  all  its  latitudes, 
with  a  transparency  of  atmosphere  which  Italy  does 
not  reach,  with  varieties  of  forest  growth  and  foliage 
unknown  to  Europe,  and  with  a  splendor  of  hues  in 
autumn  before  which  painting  must  despair.  With 
respect  to  the  moral  aspect,  I  naturally  feel  the  diffi- 
culty of  any  succinct  or  comprehensine  summary  in- 
finitely heightened.  The  feature  which  is  the  most 
obvious,  and  probably  the  most  enviable,  is  the  nearly 
entire  absence,  certainly  of  the  appearance,  and,  in  a 
great  degree,  of  the  reality  of  poverty ;  hi  no  part  of 
the  world,  I  imagine,  is  there  so  much  general  ease 
and  comfort  among  the  great  bulk  of  the  people,  and 
a  gushing  abundance  struck  me  as  the  prominent  cha- 
racteristic of  the  land.  It  is  not  easy  to  describe  how 
far  this  consideration  goes  to  brighten  the  face  of  na- 
ture, and  give  room  for  its  undisturbed  enjoyment. 
Within  a  mere  span  of  time,  as  compared  with  the 
general  growth  and  progress  of  nations,  the  industry, 
at  once  steady  and  persevering,  of  the  inhabitants,  has 
cleared  enormous  tracts  of  forest,  reared,  among  their 

untrodden  glades,  spacious  and  stately  cities,  opened 
4 


74  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

new  highways  through  the  swamp  and  the  desert,  cov- 
ered their  unequalled  rivers  with  fleets  of  steamboats 
and  craft  of  eveiy  form,  given  an  extension  to  canals 
beyond  all  previous  experience,  and  filled  land  and 
water  with  hardy  miracles  of  successful  enterprise. 
The  traveller,  wafted  with  marvellous  ease  by  steam- 
boats and  railways  over  prodigious  spaces,  cannot  but 
indulge  in  what  may  appear  a  mere  superficial  satisfac- 
tion at  the  accommodation  he  meets  with  in  the  hotels 
of  the  principal  cities,  which  are  regulated  on  a  scale, 
and  with  a  splendor  and  even  cleanliness  which  he  will 
find  scarcely  rivalled  in  the  capitals  of  Europe.  How- 
ever absorbed  in  the  pursuits  of  business,  agriculture, 
and  trade,  the  citizens  of  these  young  republics  may 
be,  and  though  it  would  seem  to  be  their  obvious  voca- 
tion in  life  to  cultivate  almost  boundless  wastes,  and 
connect  almost  interminable  distances,  circles  are  nev- 
ertheless to  be  found  among  them,  which  in  point  of 
refined  and  agreeable  intercourse,  of  literary  taste,  and 
general  accomplishment,  it  would  be  difficult  for  the 
same  capitals  of  the  elder  world  to  surpass  ;  the  Bench 
and  Bar,  as  well  as  other  professions,  can  boast  both  of 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  75 

the  solid  and  brilliant  qualities  by  which  they  are 
adorned;  and  while  Tnuch  occurs  in  Congress  that 
must  be  deemed  rough  and  unseemly,  the  chords  of 
high  and  generous  feeling  are  frequently  struck  within 
its  walls  to  accents  of  noble  eloquence  ;  in  the  univer- 
sal fluency  of  their  public  speaking  they  undoubtedly 
surpass  ourselves.  In  rural  life  I  doubt  whether  the 
world  caji  produce  more  examples  of  quiet  simplicity 
and  prosperous  content  than  would  be  found,  I  might 
say  most  prominently,  in  the  embowered  villages  of 
New  England,  or  the  sunny  valleys  of  Pennsylvania. 
I  am  sure  that  I  am  not  wanting  in  respect  for  the 
operative  classes  of  this  district,  but  I  cannot  conceal 
from  myself  that  the  appearance  of  the  female  factory 
population  of  Lowell  presents  some  points  of  favorable 
contrast.  Among  the  more  opulent  portion  of  society, 
an  idle  man  without  regular  profession  or  fixed  pur- 
suit is  the  exception  which  excites  observation  and 
surprise.  The  purity  of  the  female  character  stands 
deservedly  high,  and  society  has  been  deemed  by  some 
to  be  rendered  less  agreeable  by  the  rigid  devotion  of 
the  young  married  women  to  their  households  and 


10  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

nurseries.  It  is  something  to  have  travelled  nearly 
over  the  whole  extent  of  the  Union,  without  having 
encountered  a  single  specimen  either  of  servility  or  in- 
civility of  manner ;  by  the  last  I  intend  to  denote 
intentional  rudeness.  Elections  may  seem  the  univer- 
sal business,  topic,  and  passion  of  life,  but  they  are,  at 
least  with  but  few  exceptions,  carried  on  without  any 
approach  to  tumult,  rudeness,  or  disorder  ;  those  which 
I  happened  to  see  were  the  most  sedate,  unimpassioned 
processes  I  can  imagine.  In  the  Free  States,  at  least, 
the  people  at  large  bear  an  active,  and  I  believe,  on 
the  whole,  a  useful  part  in  all  the  concerns  of  internal 
government  and  practical  daily  life ;  men  of  all  classes, 
and  especially  of  the  more  wealthy  and  instructed, 
take  a  zealous  share  in  almost  every  pursuit  of  useful- 
ness and  philanthropy ;  they  visit  the  hospitals  and 
asylums,  they  attend  the  daily  instructions  of  the 
schools,  they  give  lectures  at  lyceums  and  institutes. 
I  am  glad  to  think  that  I  may  be  treading  in  their  foot- 
steps on  this  occasion.  I  have  already  mentioned  with 
just  praise  the  universal  diffusion  and  excellent  quality 
of  popular  education,  as  established  especially  in  the 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  77 

States  of  New  England,  the  powerful  Empire  State  of 
New- York,  and,  I  may  add,  the  prosperous  and  as- 
piring State  of  Ohio.  Without  venturing  to  weigh 
the  preponderating  recommendations  or  deficiencies  of 
the  Voluntary  System,  I  may  fairly  ask,  what  other 
communities  are  so  amply  supplied  with  the  facilities 
of  public  worship  for  all  their  members  ?  The  towns, 
old  and  young,  bristle  with  churches ;  they  are  almost 
always  well  filled;  the  Sabbath,  in  the  Eastern  and 
Northern  States  at  least,  is  scrupulously  observed,  and 
with  the  most  unbounded  freedom  of  conscience,  and 
a  nearly  complete  absence  of  polemical  strife  and  bit- 
terness, there  is  apparently  a  close  unity  of  feeling 
and  practice  in  rendering  homage  to  God. 

Though  it  would  appear  difficult,  and  must  certainly 
be  ungracious,  to  paint  the  reverse  side  of  such  a 
country  and  such  a  people,  a  severe  observer  would 
not  be  long  at  fault.  With  respect  to  their  scenery 
itself,  while  he  could  not  deny  that  within  its  vast  ex- 
panse it  contained  at  times  both  sublimity  and  beauty, 
he  might  establish  against  it  a  charge  of  monotony,  to 
which  the  immense  continuities  of  the  same  surfaces. 


*T8  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

whether  of  hill,  valley,  wood,  lake,  or  river — the 
straight  unbroken  skirt  of  forest,  the  entire  absence  of 
single  trees,  the  square  parallelograms  of  the  cleared 
spaces,  the  uniform  line  of  zig-zag  fences,  the  staring 
squareness  of  the  new  wooden  houses,  all  powerfully 
contribute.  In  regard  to  climate,  without  dwelling  on 
such  partial  influences  as  the  malaria  which  desolates 
the  stunted  pine-barrens  of  North  Carolina,  and  ban- 
ishes every  white  native  of  South  Carolina  from  their 
rice-plains  during  the  entire  summer,  the  hot  damps 
which  festoon  the  trees  on  the  southern  coast  with  a 
funeral  drapery  of  gray  moss,  the  yellow  fever  which 
decimates  the  quays  of  New  Orleans,  and  the  feverish 
agues  which  line  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  deny  the  violent  alternations  of  tem- 
perature which  have  a  more  general  prevalence,  and  it 
is  certain  that  much  fewer  robust  forms  and  ruddy 
complexions  are  to  be  seen  than  in  our  own  more  even 
latitudes.  Passing  from  the  physical  to  the  moral  at- 
mosphere, amidst  all  the  vaunted  equality  of  the 
American  freemen,  there  seemed  to  be  a  more  implicit 
deference  to  custom,  a  more  passive  submission  to  what 


TRAVELS   IN    AMERICA.  79 

• 

is  assumed  to  be  the  public  opinion  of  the  day  or  hour, 
than  would  be  paralleled  in  many  aristocratic  or  even 
despotic  communities.  This  quiet  acquiescence  in  the 
prevailing  tone,  this  complete  abnegation  of  individual 
sentiment,  is  naturally  most  perceptible  in  the  domain 
of  politics,  but  I  thought  that  it  also  in  no  inconsider- 
able degree  pervaded  the  social  circle,  biassed  the  de- 
cisions of  the  judicial  -bench,  and  even  infected  the 
solemn  teachings  of  the  pulpit.  To  this  source  may 
probably  in  some  measure  be  traced  the  remarkable 
similarity  in  the  manners,  deportment,  conversation, 
and  tone  of  feeling,  which  has  so  generally  struck 
travellers  from  abroad  in  American  society.  Who  that 
has  seen,  can  ever  forget  the  slow  and  melancholy  si- 
lence of  the  couples  who  walk  arm-in-arm  to  the  ta- 
bles of  the  great  hotels,  or  of  the  unsocial  groups  who 
gather  round  the  greasy  meals  of  the  steamboats,  lap 
up  the  five  minutes'  meal,  come  like  shadows,  so  de- 
part ?  One  of  their  able  public  men  made  an  obser- 
vation to  me,  which  struck  me  as  pungent,  and  per- 
haps true,  that  it  was  probably  the  country  in  which 
there  was  less  misery  and  less  happiness  than  in  any 


80  TRAVKL8    IN    AMERICA. 

other  of  the  world.  There  are  other  points  of  man- 
ners on  which  I  am  not  inclined  to  dilate,  but  to  which 
it  would  at  least  require  time  to  be  reconciled.  I  may 
just  intimate  that  their  native  plant  of  tobacco  lies  at 
the  root  of  much  that  we  might  think  objectionable. 
However  necessary  and  laudable  the  general  devotion 
to  habits  of  industry  and  the  practical  business  of  life 
may  be,  and  though  there  are-  families  and  circles  in 
which  no  grace,  no  charm,  no  accomplishment,  are 
wanting,  yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  among  the  na- 
tion at  large,  the  empire  of  dollars,  cents,  and  mate- 
rial interests,  holds  a  very  preponderating  sway,  and 
t  that  art  and  all  its  train  of  humanities  exercise  at  pre- 
sent but  an  enfeebled  and  restricted  influence.  If  we 
ascend  from  social  to  political  life,  and  From  manners 
to  institutions,  we  should  find  that  the  endless  cycles  of 
electioneering  preparations  and  contests,  although  they 
may  be  carried  on  for  the  most  part  without  the  riot- 
ous turbulence,  or  overt  bribery,  by  which  they  are 
sometimes  but  too  notoriously  disgraced  among  our- 
selves, still  leave  no  intermission  for  repose  in  the  pub- 
lic mind ;  enter  into  all  the  relations  of  existence  ;  sub- 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  81 

ordinate  to  themselves  every  other  question  of  internal 
and  foreign  policy ;  lead  their  public  men,  I  will  not 
say  their  best,  but  the  average  of  them,  to  pander  to 
the  worst  prejudices,  the  meanest  tastes,  the  most  ma- 
lignant resentments  of  the  people  ;  at  each  change  of 
administration  incite  the  new  rulers  to  carry  the  spirit 
of  proscription  into  every  department  of  the  public  ser- 
vice, from  the  Minister  at  a  great  foreign  court,  to  the 
postmaster  of  some  half-barbarous  outpost, — thus 
tending  to  render  those  whose  functions  ought  to  with- 
draw them  the  most  completely  from  party  influences 
the  most  unscrupulous  partisans ;  and  would  make 
large  masses  welcome  war  and  even  acquiesce  in  ruin, 
if  it  appeared  that  they  could  thus  counteract  the  an- 
tagonist tactics,  humiliate  the  rival  leader,  or  remotely 
influence  the  election  of  the  next  President.  It  is  al- 
ready painfully  felt,  that  as  far  as  the  universal  choice 
of  the  people  was  relied  on  to  secure  for  the  highest 
office  of  the  state  the  most  commanding  ability  or  the 
most  signal  merit,  it  may  be  pronounced  to  have  failed. 
There  may  be  less  habitual  and  actual  noise  in  Con- 
gress than  in  our  own  Parliament,  but  the  time  of  the 
4* 


82  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

House  of  Representatives,  not  without  cost  to  the  con- 
stituent body  which  pays  for  their  services,  is  contin- 
uously taken  up,  when  not  engrossed  by  a  speech  of 
some  days'  duration,  with  wrangles  upon  points  of  or- 
der and  angry  recrimination  ;  the  language  used  in  de- 
bate has  occasionally  sounded  the  lowest  depths  of 
coarse  and  virulent  acrimony,  and  the  floor  of  the 
Legislative  Hall  has  actually  been  the  scene  of  violent 
personal  rencounter.  The  manners  of  the  barely  civi- 
lized West,  where  it  has  been  known  that  counsel 
challenge  judges  on  the  bench,  and  Members  of  the 
Legislature  fire  off  rifles  at  the  Speaker  as  he  sits  in 
the  chair,  would  appear  to  be  gradually  invading 
the  very  inner  shrine  of  the  Constitution.  Having 
done  justice  to  the  strictness  and  purity  of  morals 
which  distinguish  many  of  the  more  settled  portions 
of  the  continent,  it  cannot  be  concealed  that  the  reck- 
less notions  and  habits  of  the  vagrant  pioneers  of  the 
West,  evinced  as  these  are  by  the  practices  of  gam- 
bling, drinking,  and  licentiousness,  by  an  habitual  disre- 
gard of  the  Sabbath,  and  by  more  constant  swearing 
than  I  ever  heard  any  where  else,  fearfully  disfigure 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  83 

that  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  destined  inevitably, 
at  no  distant  day,  to  be  the  preponderating  section  of 
the  entire  Union.  It  is  at  this  day  impossible  to  go 
into  any  society,  especially  of  the  older  and  more 
thoughtful  men,  some  of  whom  may  themselves  have 
borne  an  eminent  part  in  the  earlier  struggles  and  ser- 
vice of  the  commonwealth,  without  hearing  the  dege- 
neracy of  modern  times,  and  the  downward  tendency 
of  all  things,  despondingly  insisted  upon.  At  the  pe- 
riod of  my  visit,  besides  the  numerous  instances  of  indi- 
vidual bankruptcy  and  insolvency,  not,  alas !  peculiar 
to  the  New  World,  the  doctrine  of  repudiation,  offi- 
cially promulgated  by  sovereign  States,  had  given  an 
unpleasing  confirmation  to  what  is  perhaps  the  pre- 
vailing tendency  among  retired  politicians.  I  have  re- 
served for  the  last  topic  of  animadversion  the  crowning 
evil — the  capital  danger — the  mortal  plague-spot — 
Slavery.  I  have  not  disclaimed  the  original  responsi- 
bility of  my  own  country  in  introducing  and  riveting  it 
upon  her  dependencies  ;  I  do  not  disguise  the  porten- 
tous difficulties  in  the  way  of  adequate  remedy  to  the 
great  and  growing  disease,  But  what  I  cannot  shut 


84  TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 

my  eyes  on  is,  that  while  it  lasts,  it  must  still  continue, 
in  addition  to  the  actual  amount  of  suffering  and 
wrong  which  it  entails  on  the  enslaved,  to  operate 
with  terrible  re-action  on  the  dominant  class,  to  blunt 
the  moral  sense,  to  sap  domestic  virtue,  to  degrade  in- 
dependent industry,  to  check  the  onward  march  of  en- 
terprise, to  sow  the  seeds  of  suspicion,  alarm,  and  ven- 
geance in  both  internal  and  external  intercourse,  to 
distract  the  national  councils,  to  threaten  the  perma- 
nence of  the  Union,  and  to  leave  a  brand,  a  ^bye-word, 
and  a  jest  upon  the  name  of  Freedom. 

Having  thus  endeavored,  without  consciousness  of 
any  thing  mis-stated  or  exaggerated,  though  of  much 
that  is  wanting  and  incomplete  on  either  side,  to  sum 
up  the  good  and  the  bad,  I  leave  my  hearers  to  draw 
their  own  conclusions  from  the  whole ;  there  are  large 
materials  both  for  approval  and  attack,  ample  grounds 
both  for  hope  and  fear.  Causes  are  occasionally  at 
work  which  almost  appear  to  portend  a  disruption  of 
the  Federal  Union  ;  at  the  same  time  a  strong  senti- 
ment of  pride  about  it,  arising  partly  from  an  honest 
patriotism,  partly  from  a  feeling  of  complacency  in  its 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA.  85 

very  size  and  extent,  may  tend  indefinitely  to  postpone 
any  such  pregnant  result ;  but  whatever  may  be  the 
solution  of  that  question,  whatever  the  issue  of  the 
future  destinies  assigned  to  the  great  American  Repub- 
lic, it  is  impossible  to  have  contemplated  her  extent, 
her  resources,  the  race  that  has  mainly  peopled  her, 
the  institutions  she  has  derived  or  originated,  the  liber- 
ty which  has  been  their  life-blood,  the  industry  which 
has  been  their  offspring,  and  the  free  Gospel  which 
has  been  published  on  her  wide  plains  and  wafted  by 
her  thousand  streams,  without  nourishing  the  belief, 
and  the  hope,  that  it  is  reserved  for  her  to  do  much,  in 
the  coming  generations,  for  the  good  of  man  and  the 
glory  of  God. 


THE  POETRY  OF  POPE. 


I  HAVE  undertaken  to  read  a  paper  on  "  The  Poetry 
of  Pope."  My  hearers,  however,  will  be  sorely  disap- 
pointed, and  my  own  purpose  will  have  been  singularly 
misconstrued,  if  any  expectation  should  exist  that  I  am 
about  to  bring  any  fresh  matter  or  information  to  the 
subject  with  which  I  am  about  to  deal.  Such  means 
of  illustration,  I  trust,  may  be  amply  supplied  by  Mr. 
Croker,  who  has  announced  a  new  edition  of  Pope, — a 
task  for  which  both  his  ability  and  his  long  habits  of 
research  appear  well  to  qualify  him.  As  little  is  it 
within  either  my  purpose  or  my  power  to  present  you 
with  any  novelty  of  view,  or  originality  of  theory,  either 
upon  poetry  in  general?  or  the  poetry  of  Pope  in  par- 


88  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

ticular.  The  task  that  I  have  ventured,  perhaps  rashly, 
to  impose  upon  myself,  has  a  much  more  simple,  and, 
I  am  willing  to  hope,  less  personal  aim. 

It  is  briefly  this.  It  has  seemed  to  me  for  a  very 
long  time,  I  should  say  from  about  the  period  of  my 
own  early  youth,  that  the  character  and  reputation  of 
Pope,  as  a  poet,  had  sunk,  in  general  contemporary  es- 
timation, considerably  below  their  previous,  and  their 
proper  level.  I  felt  ruffled  at  this,  as  an  injustice  to  an 
author  whom  my  childhood  had  been  taught  to  admire 
and  whom  the  verdict  of  my  maturer  reason  approved. 
I  lamented  this,  because  I  thought  that  the  extent  of 
this  depreciation  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  preferences 
which  it  necessarily  produced  on  the  other,  must  have 
a  tendency  to  mislead  the  public  taste,  and  to  misdirect 

,    the  powers  of  our  rising  minstrels. 

I  allow  myself  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that  there 
are  already  manifest  some  symptoms  of  that  re-action, 
which,  whenever  real  merit  or  essential  truth  is  con- 
cerned,  will  always  ensue  upon  unmerited  depression. 

(  I  remember,  too,  that  it  s^ve  me  quite  a  refreshing 
sensation  to  find,  during  my  travels  in  the  United  States 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  89 

of  America,  that  among  some  of  the  most  literary  and 
cultivated  portions  of  that  great  community  (although 
I  would  not  more  implicitly  trust  to  young  America 
than  I  would  to  Young  England  on  this  point),  the 
reverence  for  Pope  still  partook  largely  of  the  sounder 
original  faith  of  the  parent  land.  I  fear,  however,  that 
there  is  still  enough  of  heresy  extant  among  us,  to 
justify  one,  who  considers  himself  a  true  worshipper, 
who  almost  bows  to  the  claim  of  this  form  of  Popish 
infallibility,  in  making  such  efforts  as  may  be  within  his 
power  to  win  back  any  doubtful  or  hesitating  votary  to 
the  abandoned  shrine. 

The  attitude,  then,  in  which  I  appear  before  you  on 
the  present  occasion,  is  this.  I  look  on  myself  as  a 
counsel,  self-constituted  it  is  true,  but  for  whose  sin- 
cerity the  absence  of  any  fee  may  be  considered  as  a 
sufficient  guarantee ;  and  here,  then,  in  the  short  space 
which  can  be  allowed  by  this  Court  for  the  business  of 
the  defence,  I  consider  myself  bound  to  put  before  you 
such  pleas  as  I  may  think  best  calculated  to  get  a  ver- 
dict from  you  on  my  side  of  the  case. 

The  best  plan,  which,  as  it  appears  to  me,  I  can 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

adopt  for  disarming  any  reasonable  suspicion  on  the 
part  of  my  jurors  (all,  I  feel  sure,  candid  and  enlight- 
ened men),  as  well  as  for  doing  justice  to  my  own 
character  as  a  critic,  is  to  state  frankly  what  I  do  not 
claim  for  my  client,  the  late  Alexander  Pope.  I  do 
not,  then,  pretend  to  place  him  on  the  very  highest 
pedestal  of  poetry,  among  the  few  foremost  of  the 
tuneful  monarchs  and  lawgivers  of  mankind.  Confining 
ourselves  to  our  own  country,  I  do  not  of  course,  ask 
you  to  put  him  on  a  level  with  the  universal,  undispu- 
ted, unassailable  supremacy  of  Shakspeare — nor  with 
Milton,  of  whom  Mr.  Macaulay,  whom  this  town  once 
honored  itself  by  making  its  representative,  has  lately 
thus  beautifully  spoken : — 

"  A  mightier  spirit,  unsubdued  by  pain,  danger, 
poverty,  obloquy,  and  blindness,  meditated,  undisturbed 
by  the  obscene  tumult  which  raged  all  around,  a  song 
so  sublime  and  so  holy,  that  it  could  not  have  misbe- 
come the  lips  of  those  ethereal  beings  whom  he  saw, 
with  that  inner  eye  which  no  calamity  could  darken, 
flinging  down  on  the  jasper  pavement  their  crowns  of 
amaranth  and  gold." 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  91 

I  fancy  that  some  might  wish  to  make  a  further  re- 
serve for  the  gentle  fancy  of  Spenser,  though  the  ob- 
solete character  of  much  of  his  phraseology,  and  the 
tediousness  inseparable  from  all  forms  of  sustained 
allegory,  must,  I  apprehend,  in  these  days,  very  con- 
siderably contract  the  number  of  his  readers.  Nay,  I 
can  quite  allow  for  the  preference  being  given  to  Pope's 
more  immediate  predecessor,  Dryden,  whose  composi- 
tions, though  assuredly  less  finished  and  complete,  un- 
doubtedly exhibit  a  more  nervous  vein  of  argumenta- 
tive power,  and  a  greater  variety  of  musical  rhythm. 
When  I  have  mentioned  these  august  names,  I  have 
mentioned  all,  writing  in  the  English  tongue,  who,  in 
my  humble  apprehension,  can  possibly  be  classed  before 
Pope. 

I  may  observe,  that  in  this  estimate  I  appear  to  be 
confirmed  by  the  present  Commissioners  of  Fine  Arts, 
who,  in  selecting  the  Poets  from  whose  works  subjects 
for  six  vacant  spaces  in  the  new  Palace  of  Westminster 
were  to  be  executed  by  living  artists,  named  Chaucer 
(who  by  his  antiquity  as  well  as  his  merits  was 
properly  appointed  to  lead  the  line  of  English 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 


bards),    Shakspeare,    Spenser,   Milton,   Dryden,   and 
,     Pope. 

Though  I  conceive,  and  you  will  readily  concur,  that 
the  case  I  am  endeavoring  to  make  good  must  be 
mainly  established  by  my  client's  own  precise  words, — 
and  the  anticipated  pleasure  of  quoting  them  to  atten- 
tive ears  has  been,  perhaps,  my  chief  inducement  to 
undertake  the  office  which  I  am  now  fulfilling, — yet  I 
consider  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  for  the  object  I  have 
in  view,  especially  before  an  audience  of  a  nation  which 
much  delights  in,  and  is  indeed  much  ruled  by,  pre- 
cedent, if  I  should  quote  a  few  approved  authorities 
(had  time  permitted  I  might  have  availed  myself  of  a 
great  number),  merely  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that 
if  you  should  be  pleased  to  side  with  me  in  this  issue, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  in  company  of*which  we  shall 
have  no  need  to  be  ashamed. 

I  shall  also  thus  furnish  a  proof  of  what  I  have 
stated  above,  th'at  I  am  not  straining  after  originality 
or  novelty  of  remark ;  indeed,  I  feel  that  I  shall  make 
way  in  proportion  as  the  testimony  I  adduce  proceeds 
from  lips  more  trustworthy  than  my  own. 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  93 

What  says  Savage,  a  poet  himself  of  irregular,  but 
no  mean  genius  ?     He  thus  speaks  of  Pope : — 


"  Though  gay  as  mirth,  as  curious  thought  sedate, 
As  elegance  polite,  as  power  elate, 
Profound  as  reason,  and  as  justice  clear, 
Soft  as  persuasion,  yet  as  truth  severe, 
As  bounty  copious,  as  persuasion  sweet, 
Like  nature  various,  and  like  art  complete  ; 
So  fine  her  morals,  so  sublime  her  views, 
His  life  is  almost  equalled  by  his  muse." 


Part  of  this  commendation,  I  must  admit,  appears 
even  to  me  overstrained.  Some  of  Pope's  composi- 
tions are  marred  by  occasional  coarseness  and  indeli- 
cacy, and  his  mind  and  character,  I  fear  it  must  be 
allowed,  were  at  times  disfigured  by  envy,  resentment, 
and  littleness.  Compared,  however,  with  most  of  his 
predecessors  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  with 
many  of  his  own  contemporaries,  both  his  muse  and 
his  life  may  have  been  deemed  decent  and  severe.  He 
seems  himself,  at  all  events,  to  have  indulged  in  this 
estimate  of  the  tenor  of  his  own  productions  : — 


94  THE    POETRY    OF   POPE. 

"  Curst  be  the  verse,  how  well  soe'er  it  flow, 
That  tends  to  make  one  honest  man  my  foe, 
Give  virtue  scandal,  innocence  a  fear, 
Or  from  the  soft-eyed  virgin  steal  a  tear." 

I  return  to  my  authorities. 

I  do  not  quote  Bishop  Warburton,  as  he  was  the 
avowed  apologist,  as  well  as  executor  and  editor,  of 
Pope. 

Dr.  Joseph  Warton,  who  wrote  an  essay  on  the  genius 
and  writings  of  Pope,  chiefly  with  a  view  of  proving 
what  I  have  admitted  above,  that  he  ought  not  to  be 
ranked  in  the  highest  class  of  our  native  poets,  and 
who  appears  to  wish,  as  I  certainly  do  not,  to  have  a 
hit  at  him  whenever  he  can,  concedes,  however,  thus 
much  to  him  : — 

"  In  the  species  of  poetry  wherein  Pope  excelled, 
he  is  superior  to  all  mankind,  and  I  only  say  that  this 
species  of  poetry  is  not  the  most  excellent  one  of  the 
art.  He  is  the  great  poet  of  reason,  the  first  of  ethi- 
cal authors  in  verse." 

Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  well-known  and  most  agreeable 
life  of  Pope,  says  thus  : — 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  95 

"  Of  his  intellectual  character,  the  constituent  and 
fundamental  principle"  was  good  sense  ;"  and  then, 
"  Pope  had  likewise  genius,  a  mind  active,  ambitious, 
and  adventurous,  always  investigating,  always  aspiring, 
in  its  widest  searches  longing  to  go  forward,  in  its 
highest  flights  still  wishing  to  be  higher." 

And  at  the  close  of  the  masterly  contrast  which  he 
draws  between  Dryden  and  Pope,  he  thus  sums  it 
up:— 

"  If  the  flights  of  Dryden  are  higher,  Pope  con- 
tinues longer  on  the  wing ;  if  of  Dryden's  fire  the 
blaze  is  brighter,  of  Pope  is  the  heat  more  regular  and 
constant.  Dryden  often  surpasses  expectation,  and 
Pope  never  falls  below  it.  Dryden  is  read  with  fre- 
quent astonishment,  and  Pope  with  perpetual  delight." 

Mason,  also  a  poet  and  very  accomplished  man,who 
had  done  so  much  in  editing  and  illustrating  the  works 
of  another  most  eminent  and  admirable  master  of  his 
art  (I  refer  to  Gray),  has  shown  what  an  exalted  esti- 
mate he  had  formed  of  Pope,  in  the  passage  where 
he  reproaches  him  for  the  undue  praise  which  he  had 


96  TriE    POETRY    OF    POPfi. 

lavished  on  the  famous  Henry  St.  John,  Lord  Boling- 
broke : — 

"  Call  we  the  shade  of  Pope  from  that  blest  bower, 

Where  throned  he  sits  with  many  a  tuneful  sage ; 
Ask,  if  he  ne'er  repents  that  luckless  hour, 
When  St.  John's  name  illumined  glory's  page. 

Ask,  If  the  wretch  who  dared  his  honor  stain, 

Ask,  if  his  country's,  his  religion's  foe, 
Deserved  the  wreath  that  Marlboro'  failed  to  gain, 

The  deathless  meed,  he  only/could  bestow  ?" 

George,  Lord  Lyttelton,  another  poet  himself,  calls 
him  "  The  sweetest  and  most  elegant  of  English  poets, 
the  severest  chastizer  of  vice,  and  the  most  persuasive 
teacher  of  wisdom." 

How  speaks  Campbell,  the  author  of  the  Pleasures 
of  Hope,  and  the  Battle  of  the  Baltic  ?  If  any  one 
is  entitled  to  speak  of  what  true  poetry  is,  that  right 
will  not  be  denied  to  Thomas  Campbell.  He  calls 
Pope,  "  a  genuine  poet,"  and  says  with  true  discrimi- 
nation : — 

"  The  public  ear  was  long  fatigued  with  repetitions 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  97 

of1  his  manner  ;  but  if  "we  place  ourselves  in  the  situa- 
tion of  those  to  whom  his  brilliancy,  succinctness,  and 
animation  were  wholly  new,  we  cannot  wonder  at  their  / 
being  captivated  to  the  fondest  admiration." 

I  will  only  further  cite  from  the  poets  whom  'many 
of  us  remember  in  our  own  day,  one  still  more  illus- 
trious name.  The  fervid,  wayward,  irregular  muse  of 
Lord  Byron,  presented  the  strongest  points  of  contrast 
with  the  measured,  even,  highly-trained,  smoothly- 
polished,  temperament  of  Pope.  What  did  Lord  j 
Byron  think  of  Pope  ?  He  terms  him,  "  The  most 
perfect  and  harmonious  of  poets — he,  who,  having  no 
fault,  has  had  reason  made  his  reproach.  It  is  this 
very  harmony  which  has  raised  the  vulgar  and  atro- 
cious cant  against  him — (Lord  Byron  was  fond  of 
using  strong  language) : — because  his  versification  is 
perfect,  it  is  assumed  that  it  is  his  only  perfection ;  be- 
cause his  truths  are  so  clear,  it  is  asserted  that  he  has 
no  invention  ;  and  because  he  is  always  intelligible,  it 
is  taken  for  granted  that  he  has  no  genius.  I  have 
loved  and  honored  the  fame  and  name  of  that  illustri- 
ous and  unrivalled  man,  far  more  than  my  own  paltry 
5 


98  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

renown,  and  the  trashy  jingle  of  that  crowd  of  schools 
and  upstarts  who  pretend  to  rival  or  even  surpass  him. 
Sooner  than  a  single  leaf  should  be  torn  from  his  laurel, 
it  were  better  that  all  which  these  men,  and  that  I,  as 
one  of  their  set,  have  ever  written,  should  line  trunks." 

There  is  another  and  more  general  testimony  to  the 
reputation,  at  least,  if  not  to  the  actual  merits  of  Pope, 
which  may  be  here  mentioned ;  this  is,  the  extent  to 
which  his  lines  are  quoted  as  familiar  maxims  and  illus- 
trations of  the  daily  incidents  of  life,  and  the  common 
meanings  of  men, — quoted  often  probably  by  persons 
who  have  little  knowledge  or  recollection  where  the 
words  are  to  be  found.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that, 
in  this  respect,  and  it  is  one  not  to  be  considered 
slightingly,  he  would  be  found  to  o»cupy  the  second 
place,  next,  of  course,  to  the  universal  Shakspeare 
himself.  Allow  me  to  cite  a  few  instances. 

When  there  has  been  a  pleasant  party  of  people, 
either  in  a  convivial  or  intellectual  view — I  wish  we 
might  think  it  of  our  meeting  this  evening — we  say 
that  it  has  been 

"  The  feast  of  reason,  and  the  flow  of  soul." 


TTIE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  99 

How  often  are  we  warned — I  have  sometimes  even 
heard  the  warning  addressed  to  Mechanics'  Institutes, 
—that 

"  A  litlle  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing/' 

How  often  reminded, 

"  An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God," 

Or,  with  nearly  the  same  meaning, 

"  Who  taught  the  useful  science,  to  be  good." 

There  is  a  couplet  which  I  ought  to  carry  in  my  own 
recollection — 

"  What  can  ennoble  sots,  or  slaves,  or  cowards  ? 
Alas !  not  all  the  blood  of  all  the  Howards." 

It  is  an  apt  illustration  of  the  offices  of  hospitality, 

"  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  going  guest.'* 

How  familiar  is  the  instruction, 

"  To  look,  through  Nature,  up  to  Nature's  God^1 


100  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

As  rules  with  reference  to  composition, 

"  The  last  and  greatest  art— the  art  to  blot." 
"  To  snatch  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art ;" 

And  then  as  to  the  best  mode  of  conveying  the  instruc- 
tion, 

"  Men  must  be  taught  as  if  you  taught  them  not." 

There  is  the  celebrated  definition  of  wit : 

"  True  wit  is  nature  to  advantage  dressed ; 
What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed." 

Do  you  want  to  illustrate  the  importance  of  early  edu- 
cation ?     You  observe, 

"  Just  as  the  twig  is  bent  the  tree's  inclined." 

Do  you  wish  to  characterize  ambition  somewhat  favor- 
ably ?     You  call  it, 

u  The  glorious  fault  of  angels  and  of  gods." 

Or  Describing  a  great  conqueror, 

"  A  mighty  hunter,  and  his  prey  was  man." 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  101 

Do  you  seek  the  safest  rule  for  architecture  or  garden- 
ing? 

tt  Consult  the  genius  of  the  place  in  all ;" 

Or,  with  exquisite  good  sense, 

"  'Tis  use  alone  that  sanctifies  expense, 
And  splendor  borrows  all  her  rays  from  sense." 

Are  you  tempted  to  say  any  thing  rather  severe  to 
your  wife  or  daughter,  when  she  insists  on  a  party  of 
pleasure,  or  an  expensive  dress  ?  You  tell  her, 

"  That  every  woman  is  at  heart  a  rake." 

And  then,  if  you  wish  to  excuse  your  own  submission, 
you  plead — 

"  If  to  her  share  some  female  errors  fall, 
Look  on  her  face  and  you'll  forget  them  all." 

How  often  are  we  inclined  to  echo  the  truth — 

"  That  fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread," 

And  this  too, — 

u  That  gentle  dnlness  often  loves  a  joke." 


102  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

Who  has  not  felt  this  to  be  true  ? 

"  Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast ; 
Man  never  is,  but  always  to  be  blest." 

When  an  orator,  or  a  Parliamentary  candidate — in 
which  last  capacity  I  have  often  appeared  before  some 
of  you — wishes  to  rail  at  absolute  governments,  he 
talks  of  % 

"  The  monstrous  faith  of  many  made  for  one." 

Then  there  are  two  maxims,  one  in  politics  and  one  in 
religion,  which  have  both  been  extensively  found  fault 
with,  but  the  very  amount  of  censure  proves  what 
alone  I  am  now  attempting  to  establish,  not  the  truth 
or  justice  of  Pope's  words,  but  their  great  vogue  and 
currency : — 

"  For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest ; 
Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best: 
For  modes  of  faith  let  graceless  zealots  fight ; 
His  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right." 

It  is  now  time  to  judge  Pope  from  his  own  works, 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE,  103 

by  which,  of  course,  his  place  in  the  estimate  of  posteri- 
ty must  finally  stand. 

I  shall  pass  hurriedly  by  his  earlier  compositions. 
He  tells  us  himself  of  the  precocity  of  his  genius ; 

"  I  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came." 

But  his  very  youthful  productions,  on  the  whole,  appear 
to  be  more  remarkable  for  their  dates  than  their  intrin- 
sic merits.  He  wrote  his  Pastorals  at  sixteen.  Inde- 
pendently of  the  age  at  which  they  were  written,  they 
appear  to  me  trivial,  forced,  out  of  keeping  with  the 
English  soil  and  life  to  which  they  are  by  way  of  being 
assigned.  One  piece  of  praise  is  justly  their  due ;  after 
the  publication  of  these  verses  by  a  youth,  we  may  call 
him  a  boy,  of  sixteen,  I  do  not  see  why  a  rugged  or 
inharmonious  English  verse  need  ever  again  have  been 
written ;  and  what  is  more,  I  believe  very-  few  such 
have  been  written.  Mr.  Macaulay  says  on  this  point, 
"  From  the  time  when  the  Pastorals  appeared,  heroic 
versification  became  matter  of  rule  and  compass,  and, 
before  long,  all  artists  were  on  a  level."  It  was  surely 
better  that  this  level  should  be  one  upon  which  the 


104  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

reader  could  travel  smoothly  along,  without  jolts  or 
stumbles. 

In  the  short  poem  of  the  Messiah,  I  do  justice  to  the 
stately  flow  of  verse  upon  the  highest  of  human  themes. 
Both  Dr.  Johnson  and  Dr.  Warton  give  it  a  decided 
preference  over  the  Pollio  of  Virgil,  which  is  concerned 
with  topics  of  close  and  wonderful  similarity.  I  do  not 
know  how  far  they  are  right,  but  I  feel  quite  sure  that 
both  the  Pollio  of  Virgil  and  the  Messiah  of  Pope  fall 
immeasurably  below  the  prose  translation  of  Isaiah  in 
our  Bibles. 

Windsor  Forest  appears  to  be  on  the  whole  a  cold 
production.  It  contains  some  good  lines  on  the  poet 
Earl  of  Surrey — 

"  Matchless  his  pen,  victorious  was  his  lance, 
Bold  in  the  lists,  and  graceful  in  the  dance"— 

an  extremely  pretty  account  of  the  flight  and  plumage 
of  a^heasant,  a  very  poetical  list  of  the  tributaries  of 
the  Thames,  and  some  well-sounding  verses  on  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht,  then  recently  concluded,  from  which 
in  the  early  part  of  this  year  I  was  induced  to  quote 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  105 

some  lines  which  I  thought  very  apposite  to  the  pro- 
posed Exhibition  of  the  Industry  of  All  Nations,  at 
London,  in  1851  : — 

"  The  time  shall  come,  when,  free  as  seas  or  wind, 
Unbounded  Thames  shall  flow  for  all  mankind, 
Whole  nations  enter  with  each  swelling  tide. 
And  seas  but  join  the  regions  they  divide  ; 
Earth's  distant  ends  our  glories  shall  behold, 
And  the  new  world  launch  forth  to  meet  the  old." 

The  Odes  written  by  Pope  are  decidedly  of  an  infe- 
rior caste.  I  need  not  say  how  inferior  to  the  immor- 
tal Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day,  by  Dryden,  who  preceded 
— or  how  inferior  to  Gray  or  Campbell,  who  have  fol- 
lowed him.  The  Ode,  perhaps,  of  every  species  of 
poetical  composition,  was  the  most  alien  to  the  genius 
of  Pope ;  its  character  is  rapt,  vehement,  abrupt ;  his 
is  composed,  polished,  methodical ;  his  haunt  would 
not  be  the  mountain  top,  or  the  foaming  cataract,  but 
the  smooth  parterre  and  the  gilded  saloon.  You  may 
prefer  one  bent  of  mind,  as  you  would  one  form  of 
scenery ;  the  question  with  which  I  now  invite  you  to 
deal  is,  not  in  what  style  Pope  wrote,  but  in  the  style 
5* 


106  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

which  he  chose,  and  for  which  his  nature  best  fitted 
him,  how  far  he  excelled. 

Among  the  very  youthful  productions  of  Pope,  there 
were  also  some  adaptations  from  Chaucer,  Ovid,  and 
one  or  two  more  ancient  authors ;  in  point  of  execution 
they  are  only  distinguished  by  their  smooth  versifica- 
tion, and  the  matter  of  them  ought  to  have  forbidden 
the  attempt. 

In  speaking  as  I  have  done  of  many  of  Pope's  earlier 
compositions,  however  I  may  assume  myself  to  be  a 
devoted  admirer — partisan  if  you  should  so  please  to 
term  it — I  conceive  that  I  have  at  least  shown'  that 
hitherto  I  am  no  indiscriminate  praiser,  who  thinks  that 
every  thing  which  proceeds  from  his  favorite  must  be 
perfect.  On  the  contrary,  though  his  facility  in  writing 
verses  was  almost  precocious,  the  complete  mastery  of 
his  art  seems  to  have  been  gradually  and  laboriously 
developed.  "  So  regular  my  rage,"  was  the  descrip- 
tion which  he  has  himself  applied  to  his  own  poetry. 
It  was  not  so  much  "  the  pomp  and  prodigality  of 
heaven,"  which  have  been  allotted  to  a  few ;  it  was 
rather,  in  the  edifice  of  song  which  he  has  reared,  that 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  107 

nicety  of  detail,  and  that  completeness  of  finish,  where 
every  stroke  of  the  hammer  tells,  and  every  nail  holds 
its  exact  place. 

His  early  friend  and  admirer,  Walsh,  seems  accu- 
rately to  have  discerned  the  path  of  excellence  which 
was  open  for  him,  when  he  told  him  that  there  was 
one  way  in  which  he  might  excel  any  of  his  predeces- 
sors, which  was  by  correctness,  for  though  we  had  be- 
fore him  several  great  poets,  we  could  boast  of  none 
that  were  perfectly  correct.  Pope  justified  the  advice, 
and  if  correctness  is  not  the  highest  pi-aise  to  which  a 
poet  can  aspire,  it  is  no  mean  distinction  to  show  how 
an  author  can  be  almost  faultlessly  correct,  and  almost 
as  invariably  the  reverse  of  all  that  is  tame,  mean,  or 
flat. 

There  come,  however,  among  compositions  which  in 
any  one  else  would  most  strictly  be  called  early,  a  few 
which  will  not  bear  to  be  dismissed  with  such  a  hasty 
or  superficial  notice.  The  Essay  on  Criticism  was 
written  when  he  was  twenty  or  twenty-one  years  old, 
and  as  such  it  appears  a  positive  marvel.  But  he  had 
now  entered  a  field  on  which  he  was  quite  a  master — 


108  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

the  domain  of  good  sense  and  of  good  taste,  applied 
to  the  current  literature  of  a  scholar,  and  the  common 
topics  of  life. 

Very  soon  after,  however,  as  if  to  show  that  if  he  had 
willed  it,  he  could  have  exercised  as  full  a  mastery  over 
the  region  of  light  fancy  and  sportive  imagery,  as  of 
sober  reflection  and  practical  wisdom,  he  wrote  what 
is  termed  a  heroi- comic  poem,  the  Rape  of  the  Lock. 
Dr.  Johnson  calls  this  the  most  exquisite  example  of 
ludicrous  poetiy,  though  I  do  not  think  the  word  ludi- 
crous a  happy  epithet  of  the  Doctor's;  Dr.  Warton 
calls  it  the  best  satire  extant ;  and  we  are  told  that 
Pope  himself  considered  the  intermixture  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  sylphs  with  the  ac.tion  of  the  story,  as 
the  most  successful  exertion  of  his  art.  As  my  busi- 
ness to-night  is  more  with  Pope  on  the  whole  as  a  poet, 
than  with  the  details  and  the  conduct  of  his  single 
poems,  I  must  not  suffer  myself  to  linger  on  the  details 
of  this  delicious  work.  It  is  so  finished  and  nicely 
fitted  together,  that  it  would  scarcely  answer  to  sepa- 
rate any  isolated  passages  from  the  context ;  besides, 
exquisite  as  the  entire  poem  is,  yet,  the  subject  beino- 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  109 

professedly  trivia],  any  single  extract  might  appear  de- 
ficient in  importance  and  dignity.  The  whole  is  as 
sparkling  as  the  jewelled  cross  upon  the  bosom  of  the 
heroine, — 

••On  her  white  breast  a  sparkling  cross  she  bore, 
Which  Jews  might  kiss,  and  Infidels  adore." 

It  is  as  stimulating  as  the  pinch  of  snuff  he  so  com- 
pactly describes, 

"  The  pungent  grains  of  titillating  dust." 

But  there  was  one  other  chord  of  the  poetic  lyre 
which  Pope,  still  young  in  years,  had  yet  to  show  his 
power  to  strike,  and  it  is  the  most  thrilling  in  the  whole 
compass  of  song — the  poetry  of  the  passions  and  the 
heart.  To  this  class  I  assign  the  Elegy  to  the  Memory 
of  an  Unfortunate  Lady,  and  the  ever  memorable 
Epistle  from  Eloisa  to  Abelard.  A  few  words  will 
suffice  here  for  the  Elegy ;  its  moral  tendency  cannot 
be  defended,  as  it  appears,  incidentally  at  least,  to  ex- 
cuse and  consecrate  suicide.  In  its  execution  it  com- 
bines in  a  high  degree  poetic  diction  with  pathetic 


110  THE    POETRY    OF    TOPE. 

feeling.  I  must  pause  longer  on  the  Epistle  from 
Eloisa  to  Abelard.  I  ought,  however,  before  I  give 
vent  to  the  full  glow  of  panegyric,  to  make  two  ad- 
missions ;  one,  that  a  sensitive  delicacy  would  have 
avoided  the  subject ;  the  other,  that  the  matter  is  not 
original,  but  is  supplied  in  great  degree  by  the  actual 
letters  of  the  distinguished  and  unfortunate  pair  who 
gave  their  name  to  the  epistle.  Where  the  adaptation, 
however,  is  so  consummate,  this  makes  a  very  slight 
deduction  from  the  merit  of  the  author.  The  poem  is 
not  long,  but  in  point  of  execution  it  appears  to  me 
one  of  the  most  faultless  of  human  compositions  ;  every 
thought  is  passion,  and  every  line  is  music.  The  strug- 
gle between  aspiring  piety  and  forbidden  love  forms  its 
basis,  and  the  scenery  and  accessories  of  monastic  life 
and  the  Roman  Catholic  ritual,  furnish  a  background 
highly  congenial,  solemn,  and  picturesque. 

I  must  endeavor  to  justify  my  panegyric  by  a  few 
quotations.  The  commendation  of  letter-writing  is 
well  known.  It  seems  to  me  still  more  applicable 
since  the  introduction  of  the  penny  stamp. 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  Ill 

"  Heaven  first  taught  letters  for  some  wretch's  aid, 
Some  banish'd  lover,  or  some  captive  maid ; 
They  live,  they  speak,  they  breathe  what  love  inspires, 
Warm  from  the  soul,  and  faithful  to  its  fires, 
The  virgin's  wish  without  her  fears  impart, 
Excuse  the  blush,  and  pour  out  all  the  heart ; 
Speed  the  soft  intercourse  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  waft  a  sigh  from  Indus  to  the  Pole." 

I  give  the  description  of  the  Convent  founded  by 
Abelard : — 

"You  raised  these  hallowed  walls  ;  the  desert  smiled, 
And  Paradise  was  opened  in  the  wild. 
No  weeping  orphan  saw  his  father's  stores 
Our  shrines  irradiate,  or  emblaze  the  floors  ; 
No  silver  saints,  by  dying  raisers  given, 
Here  bribe  the  rage  of  ill-requited  heaven ; 
But  such  plain  roofs  as  piety  could  raise, 
And  only  vocal  with  the  Maker's  praise." 

There  is  the  same  scene  colored  by  Eloisa's   own 
state  of  mind  : — 

"  But  o'er  the  twilight  groves  and  dusky  caves, 
Long  sounding  aisles,  and  intermingled  graves, 
Black  Melancholy  sits,  and  round  her  throws 
A  death-like  silence  and  a  dreud  repose. 


112  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

Her  gloomy  presence  saddens  all  the  scene, 
Shades  every  flower,  and  darkens  every  green, 
Deepens  the  murmur  of  the  falling  floods, 
And  breathes  a  browner  horror  o'er  the  woods." 

This  is  surely  eminently  poetical  and  expressive. 
She  refers  to  the  happier  destiny  of  the  nun  who  is 
entirely  true  to  her  vocation  : — 

'•  How  happy  is  the  blameless  vestal's  lot, 
The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot ! 
Eternal  sunshine  of  the  spotless  mind ! 
Each  prayer  accepted,  and  each  wish  resigned  ; 
Labor  and  rest  that  equal  periods  keep, 
Obedient  slumbers  that  can  wake  and  weep ; 
Desires  composed,  affections  ever  even, 
Tears  that  delight,  and  sighs  that  waft  to  heaven." 

Let  me  give  the  description  of  her  first  acquaintance 
with  Abelard  : — 

''Thou  know'st  how  guiltless  first  I  met  thy  flame, 
When  love  approached  me  under  friendship's  name  ; 
My  fancy  formed  thee  of  angelic  kind, 
Some  emanation  of  th'  All-beauteous  mind. 
Those  smiling  eyes,  attempering  every  ray, 
Shone  sweetly  lambent  with  celestial  day. 
Guiltless  I  gaz'd  ;  heaven  listened  while  you  sung, 
And  truths  divine  came  mended  from  that  tongue." 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  113 

In  that  beautiful  line,  the  force  of  human  passion 
seems  to  obtain  the  mastery  over  the  concerns  of  an- 
other life ;  but  I  will  close  my  extracts  from  this  poem 
with  the  wishes  she  forms  for  their  last  meeting,  in 
which  piety  appears  finally  to  predominate  over  pas- 
sion : — 

"  Thou.  Abelard !  the  last  sad  office  pay, 
And  smooth  my  passage  to  the  realms  of  day. 
See  my  lips  tremble,  and  my  eyeballs  roll, 
Suck  my  last  breath,  and  catch  my  flying  soul! 
Ah  no — in  sacred  vestments  raay'st  thou  stand, 
The  hallowed  taper  trembling-  In  thy  hand. 

(You  remark  all  the  force  in  that  word  "  trembling ;" 
in  the  next  line,  observe  how  the  words  "  present "  and 
"  lifted  "  carry  on  the  drama  of  the  scene) : — 

Present  the  cross  befo<e  my  lifted  eye, 
Teach  me  at  once,  and  leam  of  me  to  die ; 
Ah  then,  thy  once-loved  Eloisa  see, 
It  will  be  then  no  crime  to  gaze  on  me. 

(That  is,  I  think,  a  highly  impassioned  and  pathetic 
line.) 

See  from  my  cheek  the  transient  roses  fly, 


114  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

("Transient,"  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the  word, 
passing  off.) 

See  the  last  sparkle  languish  in  my  eye ! 
Till  every  motion,  pulse,  and  breath  be  o'er ; 
And  e'en  my  Abelard  be  loved  no  more. 
O  death,  all  eloquent !  you  only  prove, 
What  dust  we  dote  on  when  'tis  man  we  love." 

It  would  be  a  strange  omission  in  an  estimate  of  the 
poetical  achievements  of  Pope,  to  make  no  mention  of 
his  translation  of  Homer,  though  the  fact  of  its  being 
a  translation,  and  its  length,  would  both  rather  put  it 
beyond  the  limits  of  my  present  criticism.  Dr.  John- 
son calls  his  Iliad,  and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  with  no 
more  than  perfect  truth,  the  noblest  version  of  poetry 
which  the  world  has  ever  s^een.  The  main  objection 
alleged  against  it  is,  that  being  a  professed  translation 
of  Homer,  it  is  not  Homeric — that  it  is  full  of  grace 
and  sparkle,  but  misses  the  unmatched  simplicity  and 
majesty  of  that  great  father  of  verse, — that,  if  I  may 
so  express  myself,  it  has  not  the  twang  of  Homer. 
All  this,  I  think,  must  be  admitted;  by  some  the 
poems  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  old  ballads  like  Chevy 


THE    POETRY    OF    PO1>E.  115 

Chase,  have  been  thought  to  convey  a  better  notion  of 
this  Homeric  twang  than  can  be  gathered  from  all  the 
polished  couplets  of  Pope.  Cowper  (an  honored 
name)  tried  a  more  literal  version  in  blank  verse,  which 
certainly  may  be  said  to  represent  more  closely  at  least 
the  simplicity  of  the  original.  Let  us,  however,  come 
to  the  practical  test — as  Lord  Byron  has  asked  con- 
cerning these  two  translations,  "  Who  can  ever  read 
Cowper,  and  who  will  ever  lay  down  Pope,  except  for 
the  original  ?  As  a  child  I  first  read  Pope's  Homer 
with  a  rapture  which  no  subsequent  work  could  ever 
afford,  and  children  are  not  the  worst  judges  of  their 
own  language."  It  is  no  mean  praise  that  it  is  the 
channel  which  has  conveyed  the  knowledge  of  Homer 
to  the  general  English  public, — not  to  our  scholars,  of 
course.  Though  it  is  far  less  to  the  purpose  how  I 
felt  about  this  as  a  child,  than  how  Lord  Byron  felt,  I 
too  remember  the  days  (I  fear,  indeed,  that  the  anec- 
dote will  savor  of  egotism,  but  I  must  not  mind  the 
imputation  of  egotism,  if  it  illustrates  my  author),  when 
I  used  to  learn  Pope's  Iliad  by  heart  behind  a  screen, 
while  I  was  supposed  to  be  engaged  on  lessons  of 


116  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

more  direct  usefulness  ;  and  I  fancy  that  I  was  under 
the  strange  hallucination  at  the  time  that  I  had  got  by 
heart  the  four  first  books.  I  do  not  mention  this  as  a 
profitable  example,  but  in  order  to  show  the  degree  in 
which  this  translation  was  calculated  to  gain  the  mas- 
tery over  the  youthful  mind. 

All  the  poems  of  Pope,  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, belong  to  that  period  of  life  which,  in  all  ordi- 
nary cases,  would  be  called  youth.  I  believe  that  they 
must  have  have  been  nearly  altogether  completed  be- 
fore he  was  thirty.  Those  which  I  may  further  have 
to  quote  from  (in  doing  which  I  shall  hardly  think  it 
necessary  to  observe  so  much  separate  order  between 
the  different  poems  as  heretofore),  were  the  fruits  of 
his  matured  years  and  settled  powers.  They  hence- 
forth fall  under  one  class  of  composition,  that  which 
treats  of  men,  their  manners,  and  their  morals ;  they 
are  comprised  under  the  titles  of  satires  and  moral 
essays.  He  himself  speaks  of  the  bent  which  his 
genius  now  adopted, 

"  That  not  in  fancy's  maze  he  wandered  long, 
But  stooped  to  truth,  and  moralized  his  sonjf," 


THfe  POETRY  OF  POPE.  llV 

Upon  which  I  again  feel  happy  to  find  myself  in  full 
acquiescence  with  Lord  Byron,  who  says,  "  He  should 
have  written,  rose  to  truth.  In  my  mind  the  highest 
of  all  poetry  is  ethical  poetry,  as  the  highest  of  all 
earthly  subjects  must  be  moral  truth." 

Lord  Bolingbroke  and  Bishop  Atterbury,  certainly 
no  mean  judges  of  intellectual  merit,  declared  that  the 
strength  of  Pope's  genius  lay  eminently  and  peculiarly 
in  satire.  What  shall  I,  then,  single  out  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  his  satiric  vein  ?  The  character  of  Lord  Hervey, 
under  the  name  of  Sporus,  is  cited  by  Lord  Byron  as 
a  specimen  of  his  rich  fancy  (generally,  but  most  erro- 
neously, assumed  to  be  the  quality  in  which  Pope  was 
chiefly  deficient),  and  with  this  specimen  of  fancy  Lord 
Byron  defied  all  his  own  contemporaries  to  compete. 
That  it  does  manifest  injustice  at  least  to  the  abilities 
of  Lord  Hervey,  will  be  acknowledged  by  all  who  have 
read  his  very  entertaining  memoirs  lately  published ; 
but  moreover,  able  and  brilliant  as  it  is,  it  is  too  dis- 
agreeable to  repeat.  Let  me  quote,  then,  his  famous 
character  of  Addison,  who  had  given  offence  to  him, 
whether  with  good  reason  or  not  it  is  no  part  of  my 


118  THE  POETRV  OF  POPfi. 

present  purpose,  nor  would  it  be  in  my  power,  to  de^ 
cide.  Pope  thought  that  Addison  had  treated  him 
slightingly  and  superciliously,  and  I  believe  took  spe- 
cially amiss  the  kind  of  notice  he  had  bestowed  upon 
the  Rape  of  the  Lock.  He  speaks  of  him  under  the 
name  of  Atticus ;  you  will  remark  the  consummate 
skill  with  which  he  first  does  justice  to  his  genius,  and 
then  detracts  from  its  lustre.  It  is  also  a  great  proof 
of  the  cleverness  of  the  satire,  that,  sincere  as  our  re- 
spect is  both  for  the  genius  and  character  of  Addison, 
it  is  impossible  to  go  through  this  piece  of  dissection 
without  believing  that  it  must  have  touched  upon  some 
points  of  real  soreness. 


il  Peace  to  all  such !  but  were  there  one  whos« 
True  genius  kindles,  and  fair  fame  inspires ; 
Blest  with  each  talent  and  each  art  to  please, 
And  bora  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease: 
Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne, 
View  him  with  scornful,  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caus'd  himself  to  rise ; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And  without  sneering,  teach  the  real  to  sneer ; 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  119 

% 

Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault,  and  hesitate  dislike ; 
Alike  reserv'd  tt>  blame  or  to  commend, 
A  timorous  foe,  and  a  suspicious  friend  ; 
Dreading  e'en  fools,  by  flatterers  besieg'd, 
And  so  obliging,  that  he  ne'er  oblig'd ; 
Like  Cato,  give  his  little  Senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause ; 
While  wits  and  templars  ev'ry  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise — 
Who  but  must  laugh,  if  such  a  man  there  be? 
Who  would  not  weep,  if  Atticus  were  he  1" 

Then  I  will  take  the  character  of  the  able,  versatile, 
and  unprincipled  Duke  of  Wharton  : — 

"  Wharton,  the  scorn  and  wonder  of  our  days, 
Whose  ruling  passion  was  the  lust  of  praise : 
Bom  with  whate'er  cculd  win  it  from  the  wise, 
Women  and  fools  must  like  him,  or  he  dies ; 
Tho'  wondering  senates  hung  on  all  he  spoke, 
The  club  must  hail  him  master  of  the  joke. 

[This  couplet  has  been  applied  to  the  celebrated  Mr. 
Sheridan,  and  does  not  ill  suit  the  author  of  the 
speeches  on  Warren  Hastings'  trial,  and  the  School 
for  Scandal,] 


120  THE    POETRY    Of    POPE. 

Thus  with  each  gift  of  nature  and  of  art, 

And  wanting  nothing  but  an  honest  heart, 

Grown  all  to  all,  from  no  one  vice  exempt ; 

And  moet  contemptible,  to  shun  contempt ; 

His  passion  still,  to  covet  general  praise, 

His  life,  to  forfeit  it  a  thousand  ways; 

A  constant  bounty  which  no  friend  has  made ; 

An  angel  tongue,  which  no  man  can  persuade  ; 

A  fool,  with  more  of  wit  than  hah"  mankind, 

Too  rash  for  thought,  for  action  too  refined  ; 

A  tyrant  to  the  wife  his  heart  approves, 

A  rebel  to  the  very  king  he  loves ; 

He  dies,  sad  outcast  of  each  church  and  state, 

And,  harder  still !  flagitious,  yet  not  great. 

Ask  you  why  Wharton  broke  through  every  rule? 

Twas  all  for  fear  the  knaves  should  call  him  fool." 

I  have  given  the  characters  of  two  men  ;  fairness 
demands  that  at  least  I  should  give  you  one  of  a  wo- 
man. I  take  that  of  Chloe,  which,  unlike  the  two  last, 
has  not,  that  I  am  aware,  been  ascertained  to  belong 
to  any  actual  person,  but  most  of  us  will  feel  that  we 
have  known  people,  to  whom  some  parts  of  it  at  least 
might  fit ; — 

"  Yet  Chloe  sure  -was  formed  without  a  spot- 
Nature  in  her  then  err'd  not, but  forgot. 


TttE  POETRY  OP  POPE.  121 

'  With  ev'ry  pleasing,  ev'ry  prudent  part, 
'  Say  what  does  Chloe  want  ?'    She  wants  a  heart. 
She  speaks,  behaves,  and  acts  just  as  she  ought ; 
But  never,  never  reached  one  generous  thought. 
Virtue  she  finds  too  painful  an  endeavor, 
Content  to  dwell  in  decencies  for  ever. 
So  very  reasonable,  so  unmoved, 
As  never  yet  to  love,  or  to  be  loved. 
.  She,  while  her  lover  pants  upon  her  breast, 
Can  mark  the  figures  on  an  Indian  chest : 
And  when  she  sees  her  friend  to  deep  despair, 
Observes  how  much  a  chintz  exceeds  mohair. 
Forbid  it  heaven,  a  favor  or  a  debt 
She  e'er  should  cancel !  but  she  may  forget. 
Safe  is  your  secret  still  in  Chloe's  ear ; 
But  none  of  Chloe's  shall  you  ever  hear. 
Of  all  her  Dears  she  never  slandered  one, 
But  cares  not  if  a  thousand  are  undone. 
Would  Chloe  know  if  you're  alive  or  dead  ? 
She  bids  her  footman  put  it  hi  her  head. 
Chloe  is  prudent !— Would  you  too  be  wise, 
Then  never  break  your  heart  when  Chloe  dies." 

Having   thus   attempted  to   do   justice  to  Pope's 

powers  of  satire,  I  must  not  omit  to  mention  what  I 

consider  to  be  another  of  his  felicities  almost  of  an 

opposite  character,  though  I  have  perceived  with  plea- 

6 


122  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

sure  since  I  noted  this  topic,  that  I  have  been  antici- 
pated in  the  same  line  of  remark  by  the  late  Mr. 
Hazlitt;  I  say  with  pleasure,  because  that  ingenious 
person  was  one  of  the  guides  and  favorites  of  a  school 
the  most  opposed  in  theory  and  practice  to  that  of 
Pope ;  I  allude  to  the  extreme  tact,  skill,  and  delicacy 
with  which  he  conveys  a  compliment,  and  frequently 
embodies  in  one  pregnant  line  or  couplet  a  complete 
panegyric  of  the  character  he  wishes  to  distinguish. 
Let  me  instance  this  by  a  few  examples.  Sometimes 
the  compliment  appears  merely  to  be  thrown  out  al- 
most as  it  were  by  chance  to  illustrate  his  meaning. 
So  of  the  Duke  of  Chandos,  whom  at  another  time 
he  is  supposed  to  have  intended  to  ridicule  under  the 
character  of  Timon : — 

"Thus gracious  Chandos  is  beloved  at  sight" 

Then  of  Lord  Cornbury  : — 

"  Would  ye  be  blest  ?  despise  low  joys,  low  gains, 
Disdain  whatever  Cornbury  disdains." 

Of  General  Oglethorpe,  the  founder  of  Georgia  : — 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  123 

"  One  driv'n  by  strong  benevolence  of  soul, 
Shall  fly,  like  Oglethorpe,  from  pole  to  pole." 

These  have  reference  to  manly  virtues  ;  sometimes 
there  is  the  same  oblique  reference  to  female  claims : — 

"  Hence  Beauty,  waking  all  her  tints,  supplies 
An  angel's  sweetness,  or  Bridgewater's  eyes." 

At  other  times  the  eulogium  is  more  direct.  Take 
that  fine  application  to  Lord  Gobham  of  the  effect  of 
man's  ruling  passion,  developing  itself  in  death,  which 
he  has  been  pursuing  through  a  number  of  instances, 
the  man  of  pleasure,  the  miser,  the  glutton,  the  cour- 
tier, the  coquette,  all,  for  the  most  part,  under  circum- 
stances derogatory  to  the  pride  of  human  nature,  when 
he  thus  sums  them  up  : — 

"  And  you,  brave  Cobham,  to  the  latest  breath 
Shall  feel  your  ruling  passion  strong  in  death ; 
Such,  in  these  moments,  as  in  all  the  past, 
'  Oh,  save  my  country,  Heaven !'  shall  be  your  last." 

How  beautiful  is  the  couplet  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  his 
physician  and  friend  : — 


TTtE    POETRY    OP    POPE. 

"  Friend  of  my  life !  which  did  not  you  prolong, 
The  world  had  wanted  many  an  idle  song." 


How  ingenious  that  to  the  famous  Philip  Stanhope, 
Earl  of  Chesterfield,  on  being  desired  to  write  some 
lines  in  an  album  with  his  pencil : — 

"  Accept  a  miracle  instead  of  wit, 
See  two  dull  lines  by  Stanhope's  pencil  writ." 

How  happy  is  the  allusion  to  Lord  Peterborough,  who 
made  a  brilliant  campaign  in  Spain  within  a  wonder- 
fully short  time.  He  represents  him  as  assisting  to  lay 
out  his  grounds  : — 

"  And  he  whose  lightning  pierced  th'  Iberian  lines 
Now  forms  my  quincunx,  and  now  ranks  my  vines, 
Or  tames  the  genius  of  the  stubborn  plain, 
Almost  as  quickly  as  he  conquered  Spain." 

He  always  speaks  of  Murray,  the  great  Lord  Mansfield, 
with  pride  and  affection.  It  is  •  true  that  one  of  the 
worst  lines  he  ever  wrote  is  about  him,  the  second  in 
this  couplet : — 

"  Graced  as  thou  art  with  all  the  power  of  words, 
So  known,  BO  honored,  at  the  House  of  Lords, " 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  125 

An  instance  how  much  delicacy  it  requires  to  introduce 
with  effect  familiar  names  and  things ;  sometimes  it 
tells  with  great  force ;  here  it  is  disastrously  prosaic ; 
we  almost  forgive  it,  however,  when  he  turns  from  the 
Palace  of  Westminster  to  the  Abbey  opposite  : — 

"  Where  Murray,  long  enough  his  country's  pride, 
Shall  be  no  more  than  Tully,  or  than  Hyde." 

He  again  alludes  to  the  aptitude  for  poetical  composi- 
tion which  Murray  had  exhibited,  and  also  to  the  talent 
for  epigram  which  he  assumes  that  the  great  orator 
Pulteney  would  have  displayed  if  he  had  not  been  en- 
grossed by  politics. 

"  How  sweet  an  Ovid,  Murray,  was  our  boast ; 
How  many  Martials  were  in  Pulteney  lost." 

These  were  for  the  most  part  his  political  friends, 
but  when  he  mentions  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  to  whom 
his  friends,  more  than  himself,  were  virulently  opposed, 
how  respectful  and  tender  is  the  reproach,  how  adroit 
and  insinuating  the  praise  : — 


126  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

"  Been  him  I  have,  but  in  his  happier  hour, 
Of  social  pleasure,  ill  exchanged  for  power,— 
Seen  him,  uncumbered  with  a  venal  tribe, 
Smile  without  art,  and  win  without  a  bribe." 

I  might  adduce  many  other  instances  ;  I  might  quote 
at  full  length  the  noble  epistle  to  Lord  Oxford,  but  I 
will  sum  up  this  topic  with  that  striking  passage  in 
which,  while  he  enumerates  the  persons  who  encour- 
aged and  fostered  his  earlier  productions,  he  presents 
us  with  a  gallery  of  illustrious  portraits,  sometimes 
conveys  by  a  single  word  an  insight  into  their  whole 
character,  and  concludes  the  distinguished  catalogue 
with  the  name  of  that  St.  John  whom  he  uniformly 
regarded  with  feelings  little  short  of  idolatry,  and 
which,  however  misplaced  and  ill-grounded,  have  even 
in  themselves  something  of  the  poetical  attribute : — 

"  But  why  then  publish  ?    Granville  the  polite, 
And  knowing  Walsh  would  tell  me  I  could  write ; 
Well-natured  Garth,  inflamed  with  early  praise, 
And  Congreve  loved,  and  Swift  endured,  my  lays. 

(Observe    how  the    gentle    and   amiable    Congreve 


THE    POETRY    OF   POPE.  127 

"  loved,"  and  the  caustic  and  cynical  Swift  "  en- 
dured.") 

The  courtly  Talbot,  Somers,  Sheffield,  read, 
E'en  mitred  Rochester  would  nod  the  head, 

(said  to  have  been  the  ordinary  symptom  of  Bishop 
Atterbury  being  pleased;  then  comes  the  swelling 
climax,) 

And  St.  John's  self,  great  Dryuen's  friend  before, 
With  open  arms  received  one  Poet  more. 
Happy  the  studies,  when  by  these  approved, 
Happier  the  author,  when  by  these  beloved." 

I  feel  that  I  ought  not  entirely  to  omit  all  mention  of 
the  long  satiric  poem  of  the  Dunciad,  upon  which  Pope 
evidently  bestowed  much  care  and  labor ;  but  it  is 
throughout  disfigured  by  great  ill-nature,  and  by  a  per- 
vading run  of  unpleasant  and  unsavory  images.  There 
is  much  spirit  in  the  account  of  the  young  high-born 
Dunce,  who  makes,  what  is  called,  the  Grand  Tour : — 

"  Europe  he  saw,  and  Europe  saw  him  too ;" 

and  tells  how  he 


128  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

"Judicious  drank,  and,  greatly  daring,  dined." 

There  is  a  luscious  kind  of  burlesque  softness  in 
these  lines, 

"  To  happy  convents,  bosomed  deep  in  vines, 
Where  slumber  abbots,  purple  as  their  wines ; 
To  isles  of  fragrance,  lily-silvered  vales, 
Diffusing  languor  in  the  panting  gales ; 
To  lands  of  singing  and  of  dancing  slaves, 
Love-whispering  woods,  and  lute  resounding  waves." 

One  of  the  most  distinguishing  excellencies  of  Pope 
is  the  vividness  which  he  imparts  to  all  the  pictures  he 
presents  to  the  mind,  and  which  he  attains  by  always 
making  use  of  the  very  most  appropriate  terms  which 
the  matter  admits.  This,  in  conjunction  with  his  won- 
derful power  of  compression,  which  he  has  probably 
carried  further  than  any  one  before  or  since,  gives  a 
terseness  and  completeness  to  all  he  says,  in  which  he 
is  unrivalled.  As  instances  of  this  perfect  picture 
painting,  I  would  refer  you,  as  I  must  not  indefinitely 
indulge  in  long  citations,  to  the  descriptions,  all  in  the 
same  Epistle  on  Riches,  of  the  Miser's  House,  the 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  129 

Man  of  Ross's  charities,  and  of  the  death  of  Villiers, 
Duke  of  Buckingham*: — 

"  In  the  worst  inn's  worst  room,  with  mat  half  hung, 
The  floors  of  plaister,  and  the  walls  of  dung, 
On  once  a  flock  bed,  but  repaired  with  straw, 
With  tape-tied  curtains,  never  meant  to  draw, 
The  George  and  Garter  dangling  from  that  bed 
Where  tawdry  yellow  strove  with  dirty  red, 
Great  Villiers  lies — alas !  how  changed  from  him, 
That  life  of  pleasure,  and  that  soul  of  whim  !" 

If  any  should  object  that  this  is  all  very  finished  and 
elaborate,  but  it  is  very  minute — only  miniature  paint- 
ing after  all,  what  do  you  say  to  this  one  couplet  on 
the  operations  of  the  Deity  ? 

"  Builds  life  on  death,  on  change  duration  found?, 
And  gives  the  eternal  wheels  to  know  their  rounds." 

I  would  beg  any  of  the  detractors  of  Pope  to  furnish 
me  with  another  couple  of  lines  from  any  author  what- 
ever, which  inclose  so  much  sublimity  of  meaning 
within  such  compressed  limits,  and  such  precise  terms. 
I  must  cite  another  passage,  in  which  he  ventures  on 
the  same  exalted  theme,  with  somewhat  more  enlarge- 


THE    POETRY    OF   POPE. 

merit ;  it  would  be  impossible,  however,  for  you  to  hear 
it,  and  bring  against  it  any  charge  of  diffuseness  : — 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
Whose  body  nature  is,  and  God  the  soul ; 
That,  changed  through  all,  and  yet  in  all  the  same, 
Great  in  the  earth,  as  in  the  ethereal  frame ; 
Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 
Glows  in  the  stars,  and  blossoms  in  the  trees, 
Lives  through  all  life,  extends  through  all  extent, 
Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent, 

(There  is  a  couplet  indeed.) 

Breathes  in  our  soul,  informs  our  mortal  parl, 
As  full,  as  perfect,  in  a  hair  as  heart ; 
As  full,  as  perfect,  in  vile  man  that  mourns, 
As  the  rapt  seraph  that  adores  and  burns : 
To  Him  no  high,  no  low,  no  great,  no  small ; 
He  fills,  he  bounds,  connects,  and  equals  all." 

Let  me  invite  your  attention  to  the  few  following 
lines  on  the  apportionment  of  separate  instincts  or 
qualities  to  different  animals,  and  be  good  enough  to 
observe  how  the  single  words  clench  the  whole  argu- 
ment. They  are  as  descriptive  as  the  bars  of  Haydn's 
music  in  the  Oratorio  of  the  Creation : — 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  131 

"  What  modes  of  sight  betwixt  each  wide  extreme, 
The  mole's  dimturtain,  and  the  lynx's  beam ; 
Of  smell,  the  headlong  lioness  between, 
And  hound  sagacious  on  the  tainted  green ; 
Of  hearing,  from  the  life  that  fills  the  flood, 
To  that  which  warbles  through  the  vernal  wood ; 
The  spider's  touch,  how  exquisitely  fine, 
Feels  at  each  thread,  and  lives  along  the  line." 

What  a  couplet  again  is  that !  It  is  only  about  a 
spider ;  but  I  guarantee  its  immortality. 

If  I  set  down  the  Terse,  the  Accurate,  the  Complete, 
the  pungency  of  the  Satiric  point,  the  felicity  of  the 
well-turned  Compliment,  as  the  distinctive  features  of 
Pope's  poetical  excellence,  it  should  not  escape  us  that 
there  are  occasions  when  he  reaches  a  high  degree  of 
moral  energy  and  ardor.  I  have  purposely  excluded 
from  our  present  consideration  all  scrutiny  and  dissec- 
tion of  Pope's  real  inner  character.  I  am  aware,  that, 
taking  it  in  the  most  favorable  light,  it  can  only  be  re- 
garded as  formed  of  mixed  and  imperfect  elements ; 
but  I  cannot  refuse  to  myself  the  belief  that  when  the 
Poet  speaks  in  such  strains  as  these,  they  in  some  de- 
gree reflect  and  embody  the  spirit  of  the  Man.  I 


132  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

quote  from  his  animated  description  of  the  triumph  of 
vice : — 

"  Let  Greatness  own  her,  and  she's  mean  no  more  ; 
Her  birth,  her  beauty,  crowds  and  courts  confess, 
Chaste  matrons  praise  her,  and  grave  bishops  bless ; 
In  golden  chains  the  willing  world  she  draws, 
And  hers  the  Gospel  is,  and  hers  the  laws ; 
Mounts  the  tribunal,  lifts  her  scarlet  head, 
And  sees  pale  virtue  carted  in  her  stead. 
Lo !  at  the  wheels  of  her  triumphal  car, 
Old  England's  genius,  rough  with  many  a  scar, 
Dragg'd  in  the  dust !  his  arms  hang  idly  round , 
His  flag  inverted  trails  along  the  ground !" 

And,  again,  with  more  special  reference  to  himself, 

"  Ask  you  what  provocation  I  have  had  ? 
The  strong  antipathy  of  good  to  bad. 
When  truth  or  virtue  an  affront  endures, 
Th'  affront  is  mine,  my  friend,  and  should  be  yours. 

Yes,  1  am  proud,  I  must  be  proud  to  see, 
• 

Men  not  afraid  of  God,  afraid  of  me : 

Safe  from  the  bar,  the  pulpit,  and  the  throne, 
Yet  touch 'd  and  sham'd  by  ridicule  alone. 
O  sacred  weapon !  left  for  truth's  defence, 
Sole  dread  of  folly,  vice,  and  insolence ! 


THE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  133 

To  all  but  heav'n-directcd  hands  deny'd, 

The  muse  may^ive  thee,  but  the  gods  must  guide : 

Rev'rent  I  touch  thee !  but  with  honest  zeal ; 

To  rouse  the  watchmen  of  the  public  weal, 

To  virtue's  work  provoke  the  tardy  Hall, 

And  goad  the  prelate  slumbering  in  his  stall. 

Let  envy  howl,  while  heav'n's  whole  chorus  sings, 

And  bark  at  honor  not  conferr'd  by  kings ; 

Let  flatt'ry  sick'ning  see  the  incense  rise, 

Sweet  to  the  world,  and  grateful  to  the  skies : 

Truth  guards  the  poet,  sanctifies  the  line, 

And  makes  immortal,  verse  as  mean  as  mine." 

My  limits,  more  than  my  materials,  warn  me  that  I 
must  desist.  As,  however,  with  reference  to  the  single 
object  which  I  have  all  along  had  in  view,  I  think  it 
more  politic  that  I  should  let  the  words  of  Pope,  rather 
than  my  own,  leave  the  last  echoes  on  your  ear,  I 
should  like  to  conclude  this  address  with  his  own  con- 
cluding lines  to  perhaps  the  most  important  and  highly 
wrought  of  his  poems,  the  "  Essay  on  Man."  They 
appear  to  me  calculated  to  leave  an  appropriate  im- 
pression of  that  orderly  and  graceful  muse,  whose  at- 
tractions I  have,  feebly  I  know  and  inadequately,  but 
with  the  honesty  and  warmth  of  a  thorough  sincerity, 


134  THE    POETRY    OF    POPE. 

endeavored  to  place  before  you ;  if  I  mistake  not,  you 
will  trace  in  them,  as  in  his  works  at  large,  the  same 
perfect  propriety  of  expression,  the  same  refined  sim- 
plicity of  idea,  the  same  chastened  felicity  of  imagery, 
all  animated  and  warmed  by  that  feeling  of  devotion 
for  Bolingbroke,  which  pervaded  his  poetry  and  his 
life :— 


"  Come  then,  my  friend !  my  genius !  come  along ; 
Oh  master  of  the  poet,  and  the  song! 
And  while  the  muse  now  stoops,  or  now  ascends, 
To  man's  low  passions,  or  their  glorious  ends, 
Teach  me,  like  thec,  in  various  nature  wise, 
To  fall  with  dignity,  with  temper  rise ; 
Form'd  by  thy  converse,  happily  to  steer 
Prom  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe ; 
Correct  with  spirit,  elegant  with  ease, 
Intent  to  reason,  or  polite  to  please. 
Oh !  while  along  the  stream  of  time  thy  name 
Expanded  flies,  and  gathers  all  its  fame ; 
Bay,  shall  my  little  bark  attendant'sail, 
Pursue  the  triumph,  and  partake  the  gale  ? 
When  statesmen,  heroes,  kings,  in  dust  repose 
Whose  sons  shall  blush  their  fathers  were  thy  foes, 
Shall  then  this  verse  to  future  age  pretend 
Thou  wert  my  guide,  philosopher  and  friend,— 


TilE    POETRY    OF    POPE.  135 

That  urg'd  by  thce,  I  turn'd  the  tuneful  art 
From  sounds  to  things,  from  fancy  to  the  heart ; 
For  wit's  false  mirror  held  up  nature's  light ; 
Show'd  erring  pride,  whatever  is,  is  right : 
That  reason,  passion,  answer  one  great  aim ; 
That  true  self-love  and  social  are  the  same ; 
That  virtue  only  makes  our  bliss  below ; 
And  all  our  knowledge  is  ourselves  to  know." 

Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  is  my  case. 


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